


Illusion IS Reality (and only one of us is a Pines Triplet!)

by bluefrosty27, josephina_x, Mizuuma



Series: Dimension 46’\-A [14]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, Illusion IS Reality, Massive Crossover, One Year Later, Pines Triplets AU, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 00:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefrosty27/pseuds/bluefrosty27, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizuuma/pseuds/Mizuuma
Summary: -A Bill gets a visit from two other Bills from two completely different dimensional sets!Will they all survive?...Um, yes. The answer is yes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: Illusion IS Reality (and only one of us is a Pines Triplet!)  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Summary: -A Bill gets a visit from two other Bills from two completely different dimensional sets! _Will they all survive?_
> 
> ...Um, yes. The answer is yes.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: The massive crossover that started all of the -A crossover madness! Woohoo!
> 
> You should really read the original thing in its entirety at Mizuuma’s fic, [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582)! There are cool pictures by Mizuuma and BlueFrosty and everything! (I don’t have permission to link/post the pics here, yet -- mostly/hopefully only ‘cause I haven’t asked yet, my bad! -- but if I can get it, I will embed them in this fic here, too, where they belong!)
> 
> The other author is BlueFrosty, and their fic is here: [Pines Triplets AU](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefrosty27/pseuds/bluefrosty27/series)
> 
> And, of course, there is Pengychan’s fic, [Flat Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062122/). ...which admittedly, I am stealing a good chunk of as backstory wholecloth, but now I have an idea of where and how -A Bill diverged from _that_ and, woo, it’s a doozy. (Well, if I don’t change my mind again mid-stream to something else. We’ll see? :) ;)
> 
> Note that this fic here focuses mainly on the -A Bill series events, and does not include or cover the parts where Miz and Seb are not in the dimension yet, or are away from -A Bill and the other -A characters.
> 
> Note that I will be adding (very) few small “between the scenes” bits that fill in some of the time lapses that Miz and Seb aren’t awake for or privy to, and that I will note when these occur in-fic.
> 
> (...They aren’t written yet, though. Erm. I guess, stay tuned? I’d rather get up-and-posted what I can right now, before things go sideways with me again. Still. Ergh. (Don’t ask. Tomorrow is gonna be a bear, and so are the next few weeks, the way things are looking right now. Because I have no willpower, and I am sick and not taking good enough care of myself, and... just… don’t ask.))
> 
> \--Okay, on with the fic!! ^_^;;;;;;;;;;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: There is a large chunk of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582) that happens before this part, first. Miz!Bill (a human girl who died and got reincarnated as a Bill Cipher) meets Sebastian Pines (a reborn Bill Cipher who grew up human as Stanford and Stanley Pines’ triplet), and Miz and Seb end up accidentally travelling through several other fic-dimensions together until they land in… -A Bill’s dimension. (Oops.)
> 
> -A Bill, for his part, just left the house as per the first scene break in [The Idiot Parade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15422892).
> 
> This is a “repost” of a section that is also included in the crossover chapter of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582).

\---

The grass was wet.

Well, sort of. Wet enough to make his boxers a bit damp the longer he sat there cross legged in the backyard of the Shack, just outside the barrier by a few feet.

Bill had his eyes closed, and was finding it a bit hard to concentrate, what with the pounding in his skull, his aching mind, and the raspy soreness of his throat.

So he straightened up into a loose sitting posture, put his hands on his knees, and took care of that first.

It took three times running through some of the easier mental mandalas, murmuring a word or two here and there to set the spells that were almost half-meditations, to get to a point where none of that was a problem anymore -- about half a minute. He opened his eyes and half-snarled at himself -- he _still_ needed to work on his speed. If he needed healing in the future...

\--Well, better not to need it in the first place, HAHA! ...But was there a way he could pull that off?

Bill mulled over the problem for a bit. Then Bill smoothed down the t-shirt he was still wearing and resituated himself a bit in-place, a wide and wicked grin spreading across his face.

First, he tossed a perception filter over his back at the Shack, to wrap ‘partway’ over the top of the barrier (the ‘part’ that was open to the air and above ground) without actually touching the barrier -- no point in letting the surprise out too early!

Second, he moved his hands into a triangular shape and magicked his stupid human-ish body female, then stretched luxuriously in-place. -- _Much_ better!

Bill’s grin widened as he thought about the look that idiot Stanford was going to get on his face when he realized… WELL! --And then Bill promptly collapsed backwards to lay flat on the grass staring up at the sky. Might as well let Stanley handle things with Stanford for a change. Why go back inside right away if he didn’t have to? Given how wound up that idiot had been on waking up, Stanley would probably need at least thirty minutes with him to--

“”-uuuuuuck!!””

Bill blinked, then slowly levered himself up on his elbows, looking around.

A sound coming from far away and getting louder and closer. Two people appeared and slammed into the ground, bouncing a few times as they couldn't affect the physical world while within the Mindscape. A little girl moans from her position face down on the grass. “Uuugh... god dammit!!”

Bill stared.

“You see... This happens when we don’t communicate and use violence for everything!” The blond brunet man next to her glared at her half heartedly. He looked up and smiled. “Miz! It’s the Shack!”

Bill frowned.

Miz pulls herself up from the ground. “Oh cool. It is.”

“I guess it was my door after all!” Seb smiled.

 _‘Oh, hell no,_ ’ thought Bill, eyes narrowing as he slowly levered himself up further, then got his feet under him and pushed himself upright. ‘ _My dimension. My Shack. MINE_.’ He wasn’t putting up with people laying claim to his stuff! (Even if it was technically Stanley’s stuff and Bill didn’t want it anyway.)

Miz glances around and twitches. “Ah... you might be celebrating too soon…” she backs up when she sees someone who could only be the Bill Cipher of this dimension staring at them. She looked up at this angry looking person and could only say one thing.

“Sweet! I'm not the only girl!”

Seb frowned and looked down at her. “Seriously?”

Welp, that called for only one response, as far as Bill was concerned: he put his hands on his hips and declared, “Kid, I’m not a girl, I’m a guy!” Who the heck mixed up ‘girl’ with ‘female’, anyway?!

Miz brings her hands up to her mouth. “Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Um... hello sir!”

Bill grinned at the kid. Well, _that_ was better! “HAHA! Hello sir, yourself!”

Seb resisted the urge to face palm at these kids and examined the g-no, his bad, boy, in front of him. “So, you’re the Bill from this dimension, right?”

Bill felt an odd shock run through him, and he rocked back on his feet. “ _This_ dimension’s Bill?” Oh, oh, was this REALLY a THING? The shock was quickly morphing to a heady mix of excitement, and...

Seb looked down at Miz and then back at Bill. “Um, sure... We are dimension travellers!” He grinned.

Bill eyed him, then gave him a grin. Was this another Bill? He could understand the impulse to take over the Shack, then!

“WELL, WELL, WELL.” Bill had always suspected there were other Bill Ciphers, for _reasons_ , but--

Miz looked guilty. “Ax is gonna ground me for at least a million years for this….” She moaned. Maybe if she was lucky, and made super sad pouty faces, he would lessen his punishment?

“Why would he, no, you know what? I don’t wanna know.” Seb shook his head. He had enough problems as it was. He needed to go back!

“Oh, you’ve got a problem with the stupid lizard?” Bill asked. Hmm, maybe… “You wanna help me kill him?” he asked with bright eyes, as he not quite bounced on his feet.

“You see?!” Seb shouted at Miz. “No one likes him!” Seb turned to look at Bill. “Yes, I wanna.”

Miz whines. “Dad isn't THAT bad!”

Bill was pleased at the first response, but floored by the second. He went expressionless. “WHAT.” ...Because yes, the stupid lizard had spun up his dimension, set everything in motion, but _THAT WAS WHY IT DESERVED TO DIE._

\--And if there really were other Bill Ciphers, WELL THEN, that only meant it deserved **WORSE THAN THAT** , as far as Bill was concerned.

Because what was a Bill Cipher, without a dead brother in their past who had been _MURDERED HORRIBLY_ , driving them on?

Miz quickly covered her mouth. She looks around in panic. “Um... you heard nothing!”

“You said the Axolotl is your Dad?!” Seb and Bill2 cried at the same time. “I think I need to lay down for a bit…” He got a bit dizzy at the news. Holy Moses...

Miz blushed and buried her face in her hands. “Well…” she starts quietly.

“Technically,” Bill said dryly, watching the girl, “It’s _everything’s_ ‘dad’, since it spins up every dimension that’s ever existed, BUT I’M THINKING that that's NOT what she meant,” Bill said, setting his shoulders and giving her not quite a glare. Because she had to be lying, right? The lizard never DID anything. That was the whole PROBLEM with the stupid thing!

“That sounds disgusting,” Seb shuddered. He didn’t know that. Or maybe he knew but couldn’t remember! Yay for a limited human brain!

Miz nodded “Well, kinda…” she winced. “Ax took me in after my dimension was destroyed and... um... I sorta called him dad once by accident and... well…” she blushed harder “...he didn't seem to mind…”

Bill stared. Then glared. He clenched his fists and started to shake in place.

Seb smiled warmly. “Alright, if he treats you nice, then I don’t care.” He remembered when he was a teen he also had someone who kind of took him in. He called him Dad once too…

He shook his head to get rid of the bittersweet memories and turned to look at Bill. “Ok, so, hi. I’m Sebastian. We kind of want to go back to my dimension. Have been trying for quite a few doors… can you let us in your Mindscape to find the door?” He grinned.

Bill was still glaring at the girl. His right eye began to twitch.

“The Axolotl. Took you in. After your dimension was destroyed.” Bill said in a flat monotone voice, all but ignoring the one (Bill?) calling himself Sebastian.

Miz hesitated but then nodded slowly, confused why this Bill seemed so upset.

“It _did something_. For YOU.”

“Kid, calm down.” Seb said frowning. “We get it, the Axolotl has nice counterparts as well. Can you answer the question??”

Bill didn’t even bother to look at Seb. What he said barely even registered, less informative than white noise -- there was only one Axolotl, not several.

Miz frowns. “Um... yeah I know Ax is pretty lazy most of the time, ok, fine, ALL of the time but... um... he does do stuff every now and then?” She makes a whining sound. “I mean... I DID just accidentally create the Big Bang…”

Bill stared at her.

And then he started to laugh.

And laugh.

And LAUGH.

Miz twitched. “Are you okay dude?” she knows that laugh. She had made the exact same one back when she was sitting in the burning remains of the 2nd Dimension.

“You--” Bill practically attacked the sides of his head with his hands, almost pulling at his hair.

Seb stared and slowly pulled Miz closer to him. This seemed to be a Bill without _quite a few_ screws.

“You MADE a dimension after yours was destroyed?” His voice got higher pitched. “And THAT made it TALK TO YOU?” He looked half deranged. “THAT made it _HELP?!?!”_

Miz tugged on her dress nervously. “Kinda? I think I ended up sucking in all the mass of the 2nd Dimension and when I couldn't hold it anymore... I exploded and it... sort of created the 3rd dimension…”

“That’s fucking awesome.” Seb looked down at the girl next to him.

“That’s fucking IMPOSSIBLE,” Bill practically spat out, then got a deer-in-the-headlights look and dropped his head to stare down at the ground, going very still.

Miz flinched at this Bill’s behavior. ‘ _He's more unhinged than I am…’_ She saw him go still. “Are you okay?”

Bill looked up at her. “Who are you? What is your name.” He had no real expression on his face.

“Um... Bill Cipher?” Miz says hesitantly.

That hadn’t been what he’d expected to hear… And it actually made it worse. Bill wasn’t certain if this ‘him’ had destroyed her own dimension or not, and... Bill looked off to the side, hands hanging at his sides. “Did the Axolotl ever give you a prophecy.” he said, not quite a question.

Miz frowned. “N-not that I know of? I DID work out some agreements for the future but we haven't really gotten the whole poem together yet?”

Bill felt his stupid human-ish body give a shiver that was almost a shudder. “You get to write your own prophecy.” he said flatly, almost to himself. He turned his head to look back at her again, dead-on. “How nice for you.”

Miz wilted in on herself. “I'm… sorry…” she whimpers.

Bill gave a smile. Not a grin. Not something that showed any teeth at all.

“Don’t be.” Bill said to her, eyes bright and hard and thoroughly, completely insane. “I’m going to win.”

Miz twitched. “Excuse me?” What was he talking about? Just ‘cause she was insane didn't mean she understood other insane people.

“Alright, enough of this cryptic crap!” Seb spat, startling Miz because she’d forgotten he was there. Bill looked over at him. “Kid, will you help or not?!” He growled, his hands lighting up in flames.

"Help with what?” Bill said. “That Shack’s not yours, and if you try to take it from my Stanley…” Bill grinned all over again, but this time? He looked amused. “WELL, I’d say I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY, _buuuuut_ …” And Bill didn’t quite snicker.

“We don’t want your Shack or your Stanley! And geesh, possessive much?” Seb rolled his eye.

Bill eyed him. “If YOU don’t understand what a Stanley is worth, that’s YOUR problem, not mine!” he all but drawled out, spreading his hands and rocking back on his heels again.

Seb growled at him. “Of course I know what he is worth, sucker! He’s my triplet and-” Seb grinned at the teen, who was blinking at him like he’d been sideswiped by a wooden 2x4 to the head. “I am closer with him than what you would ever be to this Stanley.”

Miz quietly interjects, “Are we seriously arguing over who has the better Stan Waifu right now?”

“ _Yeesh_ , I’m as close as I want to be as it is!” Bill said, looking at Seb oddly. -- _Too_ close as it was, in fact, as far as Bill was concerned... Good to know that this ‘him’ wasn’t a complete idiot, though, _or_ that he had to worry about Sebastian trying to steal his Stanley away, since he already had one he considered his personal-own.

Miz shook her head. “We just need to find the Exit door inside your mind so we can get out of here and go home.” she pouts. “And I for one, definitely know what Stan is worth. He's a good man. Though... the one in my dimension hasn't actually been born yet. I'm kinda jealous you guys already have yours.”

Bill didn’t bother giving the latter half of that a reply. The kid got plucked out of her decaying broken-down dimension for practically _existing?_ The stupid lizard was clearly playing favorites and breaking the Rules! --So she hadn’t gotten ‘her Stanley’ yet? Oh, _boo hoo!_ Cry him a river! (...Tact wasn’t exactly Bill’s strong suit, but in being reminded of Stanley… he was reminded again of the agreement they had. And in the interests of not starting a fight _first_ , of trying to follow the agreement, he kept those thoughts of his inside of his own head.)

“I’m not letting a couple of _anythings_ inside my mind, let alone you two,” Bill told them. Because two ‘him’s doing that? Seriously? “I’m not STUPID. That’s a HORRIBLE idea -- and not the _fun_ kind of horrible, either!” And it was patently obvious to him why not. He was a being of pure energy anchored to his body right now, and he barely had the shreds of his personal ‘Dreamscape’ back in some barely-held-together form right now, on top of that. (Not that they needed to know that last bit.) Mixing their energies like that, when he was like this…!

Seb screamed, losing his patience, and turned to look at the pouting girl. “There must be another way to return then! This kid will obviously not cooperate!” Bill raised his eyebrows at the last; because as far as he was concerned, he hadn’t said ‘no, forever’, just ‘no’ to _that_. One singular bad idea.

Miz rubs her arm nervously. “I don't actually know ok? This is my first time travelling across the Planes.” She actually giggles. “Planes! Get it? Because we're triangles?” Bill blinked at her. She slaps herself across the face. “Nope. Stop. Serious time!”

Seb wanted to glare, wanted to stay angry with her, but he ended up snorting and grinning. He sucked at staying serious for too long. “Ok, I’ll give that to you, that was fun.” He agreed. “But we seriously need to go back! Mabel and Dipper won’t wait forever!”

Bill frowned. ‘Wait forever’? Wait for _what?_ Did this ‘him’ have something with some kind of time limit going on with his own Shooting Star and Pine Tree?

Miz whimpered. “I don't know any other way… Ax told me to never do this. So I don't know anything about it…”

Bill let out a huff. “What, you can’t just ask your ‘dear old dad’ to help you out of this one, too?” he said more than a little snidely to her.

Seb inhaled loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright…That was rude.” Seb frowned, but he didn’t really care right now.

Miz glares at Bill. “Ax… doesn't… he can't…” her glare weakens and she frowns sadly at the ground. “He doesn't really do much besides just… be there for me to talk to…”

“Yeah?” Bill let out a laugh. “Does it ever answer back?” --Rhetorical question. If it had helped this ‘him’ out the way she said it had, then of course it had answered back. He was just more than a little pissed off about it, still. Because the lengths that _he’d_ had to go to, in order to get it to even talk to him at all, for him to realize that it would never do ANYTHING to help him (... not until he _died…?_ )... --Not that he needed the handicap, but--

Seb looked at Bill exasperated. They seriously were fighting over the Axolotl?! “How about a deal?!” He really needed to go back. He had never been out of his body for too long. Something could happen to his meat-sack!

That _immediately_ caught Bill’s attention. His head swiveled straight towards him like a compass pointing due north. “It’s that urgent?”

Miz winced. “I’ve got to get home to my friends, Pyronica can't raise her babies by herself… not to mention how those idiots are gonna support themselves without me. Hectorgon’s the only one with a job… and Teeth.”

Bill2 laughed behind Seb. “Py-Pyronica… The one from the Infinetentiary?” Seb asked his demon self and he nodded eagerly.

“Who knew that girl would get pregnant! I always imagined her eating her kids.” Bill2 shrugged.

“...So, _urgent_ , then,” Bill said with an only half-amused huff of breath. He glanced away, rubbing the side of his right hand against his temple as he answered his question to each of them for the both them.

Miz nodded, a resigned look on her face.

Seb nodded firmly. It was just a deal. The three of them knew how to make them.

“If Deals are what it'd take to get home…” Miz grumbled.

“No,” Bill said flatly. “I have a mutual nonaggression agreement going on with Stanley right now. No new Deals while it’s on.” Wasn’t exactly a stipulation of that, but with the way things had been going with the agreement so far… a Deal with other ‘him’s who _could_ make one with him would add an entire additional set of string-interactions on top of everything -- ones that could jerk him around and make things messy in ways that could easily end with him breaking the agreement, whether Bill actually wanted to or not. Right now at least, Bill _didn’t_ want to deal (HA!) with the complications of that himself.

Seb sighed tiredly. “Then we can negotiate. It’s technically not a deal.”

Bill nodded. That was fine. It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust himself to make a fair Deal -- he wouldn’t have been able to ‘split’ off multiple ‘copies’ of himself for very short periods of time, in the Mindscape way back when, and during Weirdmaggedon most recently, if he didn’t! -- and these two ‘him’s, while very different in some ways, didn’t actually seem that far off from himself. The one valued Stanley, had something going on with the younger Pines twins that he didn’t want to break, and was completely on board for helping to kill the Axolotl.

The other… had wanted the Axolotl to talk to them, too. That she’d actually _gotten_ it easily -- without doing what _he’d_ had to do for only a bare minute of it's not-just-silent ‘regard’ -- didn’t really have any bearing there, other than to toss another black ‘X’ mark in the Axolotl’s column. That this other ‘him’ seemed to _like_ the stupid lizard was… well. She was still young. _Obviously_. She likely hadn’t realized yet what all its inacting-actions actually _meant_. (She didn’t even seem to know about the Rules, or the Game?!) --She’d learn! And she _would_ get there, if she actually cared about her Henchmaniacs as much as she seemed to, if they really _were_ her friends, it was only a matter of dead time walking…

And it wasn’t like she’d objected to his stance of wanting to kill the stupid thing. That said a lot, too, all of it in her favor. Not to mention that she actually gave him _respect_. -- _Without_ the fear, because what did any ‘him’ that was also him have to fear from himself? And that was good, too. --He could work with these two.

“Then… can I talk to your Stanley to see if he would agree to helping us?”

“Miz, no.” Seb shook his head.

Bill pulled a face. She really _hadn’t_ met her Stanley or Stanford yet, had she? HA! --He’d better clue her in!

“Not a good idea,” Bill told her. “Stanford will get involved, and he’d blow a fuse at there being more than one of us around.” And as absolutely _HILARIOUS_ as that might be at ANY OTHER TIME, if that happened _right now...?_ After what had happened last night? Bill shook his head. “And if it involves you bailing out of this dimension…” Ugh, he didn’t want to have to admit to this, but… “Stanley doesn’t trust me enough to think I won’t try to jump dimensions at the chance. Not completely; not that far. Not if there’s a portal standing there open right in front of me,” he told them soberly. Because it really _was_ tempting.

Miz frowns in thought. “Well… they don't have to know that we’re ‘you’ from alternative dimensions. I look nothing like Bill Cipher, all I need to do is change my clothes. And Sebastian is LITERALLY Stan and Ford’s triplet. We can make up a story about how we're travellers from another world who need your help to get back…”

“Yes! Half truths!” Seb laughed and high fived Miz.

Bill shook his head again. “We don't get natural portals here. Stanford will shoot you, and if he doesn’t, he’ll think you’re part of my Henchmaniacs or something, as soon as he sees us not at each other’s throats.” Bill rolled his eyes. “He’s an _idiot_ , understand?” An idiot he was supposed to _not_ be attacking physically or mentally just then, as per Shooting Star and Pine Tree, respectively, in order to not damage their _fragile_ little mental states too badly as part of the agreement. _Circles_ , he hated these kinds of strings -- they tangled so easily!

“Ford’s paranoia ruins everything,” Seb pouted.

“ _YES_ ,” Bill agreed with a huff.

“So, what now? Isn’t there a way to bring that door, I don’t know, here?” The man gestured to the air around him.

Bill blinked. “You want me to turn my _mind_ inside out?” He thought about this for all of a second. “Been awhile. Probably not a good idea to try when I’m all here and physical like _THIS_.” Bill didn’t elaborate on the anchor he had all down his back, just gestured down his front in general. He wasn’t about to give _that_ one away -- not if he could help it! In Bill’s experience, that sort of idiotic oversharing got you eaten. They might be ‘him’s, but _YEESH!_

Miz raised her hand as if they were in a classroom. “I can say with full honesty that I am the AXOLOTL’s daughter. I can also honestly say that I have dimensional powers. Can't I just… wait for later, create a ‘portal’ and have me and Seb fall out? Then tell Stan and Ford our sob story about requiring a Bill Cipher's help to get home?”

“Yeah, I like that,” Seb nodded. He didn’t care what they needed to do. He just wanted to go back home with his niblings.

“HA!” Bill said. “--Same problem. _Portals don’t come here naturally_ ,” he repeated. “Stanley will think I had something to do with it, and he won’t stay quiet about knowing that if Stanford gets too loud about it -- _WHICH HE WILL_.” Bill looked between them. “Why do you even need to talk to them in the first place?” Did they actually _want_ to? --Really, he was confused on that point.

Miz shrugged. “It's just... I got the feeling your powers were being tied down by something… or rather, someONE here. And based on what you've said so far, I'm guessing it’s Stan.”

Bill narrowed his eyes at her. (And not just because that answered for him whether her All-Seeing Eye was working -- it was.)

And then he smiled a very thin, very ‘challenge accepted’ smile.

He made a gesture with his hand directly upwards and snarled a word under his breath as he visualized the mandala he’d used in the forest the afternoon prior, all while making eye contact with her.

A rather large explosion went off mid air, about fifty feet above their heads, just below the tops of the trees.

Miz and Seb flinched at the sudden noise.

Bill didn’t flinch. He just watched the ‘him” who hadn’t _quite_ challenged him outright.

“I,” said Bill, “am PERFECTLY CAPABLE of handling things WITHOUT Stanley Pines… ‘letting up’ on me,” he informed the two of them. And, frankly, he wasn’t too surprised by her ignorance. He’d seen that in a lot of demons over hundreds of billions of years, and this ‘him’ had obviously been influenced by their thinking (or rather _lack thereof_ ) a BIT too much, in Bill’s vaunted opinion!

Miz pouted. “Ok. I get it. You're still a badass demon with almighty powers.” she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Demons and their pride.

“ _Triangle_ demon, and yes,” Bill said, confirming the facts. “Maybe think about that, the next time you think another ‘you’ is, what, haha, _harmless?_ ” he grinned at her.

“Yes sir mister triangle demon sir.” Miz salutes. To be fair to him, if anyone came up to **her** and tried to tell her that she was weak, she’d probably turn their nipples into snakes. Of course then she would have to deal with Ax’s disappointed look for a few weeks.

“Got a reputation to maintain,” Bill told her, dropping his hand to cross his arms and look down his nose at her. “Last thing I need is some other ‘me’ getting themselves eaten or killed for assuming something stupid, and every last demon and their crew thinking _I’m_ the pushover.” He paused and frowned. “ _A_ pushover?” He wasn’t entirely sure how many demons knew that there was more than one Bill Cipher out there. He was pretty sure that his Pyronica knew, she’d hinted at a couple things without _actually_ hinting at things a couple of times before… which was really the best you could get out of a demon without them just vanishing on you, to never see them again. (He had some theories about that, too...)

Bill glanced over at Seb. “You’re being pretty quiet over there. Makes me think you’re up to something.” Bill grinned. “I sure would be!”

“I am tired,” Seb told Bill with an angry expression. “We are wasting too much time and, seriously, Pinetree, Shooting Star, gotta _leave._ ”

Bill let out an incredulous laugh. First-time interdimensional traveler, sure, but did this other him _REALLY_ NOT UNDERSTAND how it all worked? “--Look, you know time is DEAD, right? Nothing’s synchronized between dimensions unless you MAKE it that way. It’s space-time. SPACE PLUS TIME.” He twisted in place a little more towards Sebastian, and gave him a slight tilt of the head. “As long as you don’t go getting any information on what was ‘SUPPOSED’ to have happened while you were gone, HA, it doesn’t even MATTER when you come out! You can just jump to whenever and wherever you want with a local, fine-tuned ‘portal’--” with not even much of a ‘wherever’, really, if it was only a time jump and the guy set it up relative-local to the matter around him _properly_ , “WITHOUT causing any time loops that you’d have to close and stabilize later.”

Miz once again raised her hand. “Can confirm, I can pop into a dimension at whatever point in time I want... so long as another Me isn't already there. Mainly just ‘cause it causes too many headaches for me and not because I can't.”

The human, the only actual human between the three of them actually, blinked and looked up at Bill2, who was quietly sitting on his shoulder.

“Did you know this too?”

Bill2. “Maybe, who knows?! Not you of course, because you are an idiot who doesn’t remember anything!” He grinned and the blond scowled. Neither of the other Bill's could see Bill2 since he wasn't 'real' and could only manifest within Seb's Mindscape.

“Really, you’ve got more to worry about with aging, for how long it’d take you to do it --” not that it should take all that long “-- but if you do it _PROPERLY_...” Bill waved it off casually.

Bill was standing out in the middle of the yard, having placed himself between the two other Bills and the nearest porch to the Shack, and Sebastian sighed.

“So! Even when time won’t pass, we both still need to go back. We have entered the other Bill’s minds just fine without them exploding.” Seb shrugged and Miz nodded.

“Eh, still sounds like a bad idea,” Bill said, not really wanting to get into the details. “If you’re mainly energy trying to go inside my Mindscape, it won’t end well.” It was part of the reason why he’d been sleeping under the barrier -- spending most of his time inside it, in fact. One of the first things he’d done after Stanley had brought up the idea of a ‘passive’ magic -- and he’d figure out a good way to do it -- was to set up a couple of stones with sigils on them, kept on his body at all times, that activated outside the barrier, powered by the weirdness of the ‘Falls. One was to help against possession; the other let him see and hear ghosts and some other miscellaneous types that might be _capable_ of possessing him. (He hadn’t figured out everything stupid that was going on with his human-ish body and the anchor yet, but he’d figured out that it was something he ought to be careful about, anyway, until he did.)

“I’m not those other Bills,” Bill told them flat-out. “And my Mindscape’s a mess right now, anyway. You’d go in, and never come out, HAHA!” Probably because either he or they would combine with -- or literally pull in -- the energy of the other, but vague was the watchword, here. Last thing he needed was either of these two thinking they could get a power boost from feeding off of him, or to accidentally pull _them_ in himself. He wasn’t looking to integrate two largely unknowns with next to no idea of what he might or might not be getting; he liked his energy purified, thanks!

Seb winced at the teen’s words. “Geesh I get it. You don’t want us in, I don’t blame you.” It wasn’t nice knowing people were in your mind. Sebastian knew first hand. “Then HOW can we get back?”

Bill shrugged. “What’s this door thing you’re looking for, anyway?” He needed more information if he was going to be able to help his other ‘him’s brainstorm something, or come up with something workable himself.

Miz perked up. “Well there's this EXIT door that appears inside the Mindscape of the other Bills I've met. I've got one too, can't use it right now though. So I've found that I can only use the door that is inside OTHER Bills.”

Bill blinked. “Yeesh. All right. --This a thing that’s always been there, or something new after you show up?” He’d seen a lot of doors in his day, back when he’d been able to use his own All-Seeing Eye whenever he wanted. Side effect of getting his eye put on so many one dollar bills.

Miz’s eyes began flickering. “Huh... I think they appear BECAUSE of me... when I opened MY door…”

Seb looked at the girl and hummed. “Really? You said the door had been always there.” He accused without malice.

“I thought they were... but... it's hard to explain, the Void of Doors has always been there but they're closed-see? But when I opened one, it created the door in whichever world I enter. Open on one side, create door on the other. My Mindscape always had that door though.”

“HMMMM…” Bill hummed to himself as he thought, tapping a finger against his chin. “And the door that you used to get here, why don't you just go back through it? Or trace things back from there?”

Miz pulls at her hair. “Because I can't get back inside my OWN Mindscape while I'm in another Bill’s dimension.” Fuck, fuck... if this is what Ax meant about meeting ‘bad' Bills... yeah, she could see the problem of getting trapped in a dimension with Bills that refuse to help her.

Bill’s eyebrows went up, surprised. “You’re locked out of your own Mindscape right now?” She could see Sebastian, though, and had been accessing other minds, so she had to have _some_ level of access, still. He got a light frown. “Can you sleep?” Loaded question, but he had to ask it. The Mindscape and personal ‘Dreamscape’ were connected.

Miz made a distressed sound. “I haven't slept in over 500 billion years. I can access my Mindscape by meditating but I don't have a Dreamscape.”

“You can’t sleep?!” Seb cried horrified. Sleeping was the best part of being human, and he was grateful for it. “How don’t you go insane?! ….MORE insane?!”

“Physicality requires sleep in a way that being a pure-mind doesn’t, if you reconfigure yourself-- your _energy_ self in ways that… well.” Bill let out a soft laugh. “STARTING OUT insane helps!” Had this ‘him’ _not_ been insane to start with? That didn’t make sense…

Miz winced. “I'm a being of pure energy and no matter how hard I try I can't sleep. And, excuse you I AM insane. I just function well despite it.” Start out insane? Good question, she remembers breaking down while the 2nd Dimension burned. She also remembers breaking when Will died. At what point had she truly lost her sanity?

“I am actually not a being of pure energy…” Seb mumbled, feeling left out and looking at Bill. “I’m human, I-I just have some powers from my past-life.”

“Wow,” said Bill, staring at him. “And I thought _I_ got the short end of the stick from the stupid lizard!” Then he seemed to shake himself and looked back over at the girl. “--Wait, you actually _want_ to sleep? Not just ‘deciding to not do it because it's a bad idea’ and you have things you need to do. Actually _want_ to.” It was almost a question. It came across like the concept was something he’d never really considered before.

Miz pulls at her dress. “I miss it. I miss being able to... stop thinking... at least for a little while…”

“Sleeping is the best!” Seb defended. “It is like unplugging yourself from the world, it is pure bliss and-” He stopped when he saw the glare Miz was sending him.

Bill wasn’t entirely sure if he should say something. He’d be putting himself out there a bit if he did; these other ‘him’s weren’t stupid. ‘--Eh, heck with it!’ he decided almost of a whim. He was intrigued by her problem, he was the Master of the Mind, and this was something that sounded _different_. He wouldn’t learn more about it if he didn’t offer something up in return!

“You know, kid,” Bill began. “There’s sleeping, and then there’s ‘sleeping’. --And then there’s _sleeping_ , HAHA!” He grinned at her. “And ‘stopping thinking’ isn’t any of those. --You really can’t do any of that?”

Miz frowned. “I... I learned most of what my powers are from Ax... and some experimenting on my own...”

“So?” Bill said, after she’d stopped talking for awhile. “What’s your point?”

“Well I haven't figured out how to go to sleep. The closest I've come is by possessing someone's body to sleep there or by getting blackout drunk.”

“Black out drunk?” Bill repeated. “In the Mindscape? On _what?_ ” He hadn’t thought that was possible. Reconfiguring his own energy states to resemble that, yes, fine, possible -- but feeding on an energy waveform or concept that would do that without destabilizing his _own_ standing wave?

“Oh, I create a construct body, possess it, and then get utterly smashed.” Miz says matter of factly.

“When I get drunk Bill2 gets control of my body.” Seb muttered and Bill2 grinned proudly.

“That was a good day!” Bill2 giggled madly and Seb angrily hit him in the eye. Neither of them knew Bill and Miz couldn’t see Bill2.

Bill looked between the two of them. “You, LATER.” Two Bills(?) in one body that didn’t combine sounded _nuts_. Would explain why Sebastian had seemed to be talking to himself; Bill had just assumed he’d been **that** type of insane. Bill had tried that out once -- talking to himself, that is, _not_ splitting off and talking to _that_ self for… who knew how long. “YOU.” He pointed at the girl, starting with her first. “ _Actual body_. Not just an exoskeleton. Fully tied-in?”

Miz nods slowly. “It's one of the first things Ax taught me. How to create a physical avatar with which to interact with the real world. Took me a few thousand years to get it right, mind you.”

Bill2 turned red. “He taught you?! I could NEVER leave my dimension!!” He screamed.

“Calm down, it’s over.” Seb rolled his eye.

Bill had to take a few moments to close his eyes, clench his fists, and not start SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS.

\--No, wait, he was _totally_ doing that now, pacing back and forth in infinity symbols while cursing the stupid lizard out in Galactic Standard and flailing his arms about as he went. OOPS!

It took Bill a few minutes before he was breathless enough to stop, hands on his knees as he glared at the ground.

“HAHA, IT’S FINE!” Bill enthused out, through teeth that were more gritted than grinning. “GOT A STUPID BODY THAT WORKS THAT WAY _NOW!_ GONNA FINISH FIGURING IT ALL OUT, EVERYTHING’S FINE! IT’S ALL FINE! DON’T NEED THAT STUPID THING’S HELP! WOULD’VE GOTTEN IT EVENTUALLY!”

“That’s great! It’s nice that you accept your body!” Seb smiled teasingly.

Miz stepped a little closer to this dimension’s version of Bill. “Um... I'm sorry?” she says quietly.

Bill forced himself and his stupid human-ish body through breathing exercises that he knew would work.

“No.” Bill said, not looking up at her, sounding firm and almost -- _almost_ \-- not insane for a moment. “Don’t be sorry. I would have learned it from it too, if I could have. It’s not you. It’s the lizard. That _stupid lizard_.”

“Ugh, same.” Seb huffed.

Miz smiles. “Well... um... is there anything I can do to help you feel better?”

Bill slowly looked up at her. The grin he had going on was truly evil.

“LEARN HOW TO SLEEP,” he told her, with an angry glint in his eyes. “ _That’ll_ show it.”

“I want to... I just don't know what I'm doing wrong!”

“I’m the Master of the Mind,” Bill told her. “You tell me what you’re doing, and I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong.”

Seb snorted, remembering the Bill from his dimension smugly telling his niblings exactly that.

Miz furrows her brows in thought. “I... lie down and close my eye and try to relax…”

“In a body you’re tied down to in a way the STUPID LIZARD told you to make it, WITHOUT a personal ‘Dreamscape’ to sleep within.” Bill looked twelve different kinds of pissed off.

Miz makes an “Oh.” As the epiphany hits her. “Wait. You mean... I need to make a Dreamscape first before I can…” she face palms. “I'm so STUPID!!”

“No, kid, you aren’t,” Seb reassured.

“Yes,” Bill told her. “No. Stupid, no. Ignorant and trusting the stupid lizard? YES.” He looked grim. He’d thought he’d had it bad -- not trusting it at all, not depending on it, being unable to -- but… if he was right about this, understood her correctly, then in talking with her and teaching her, the lizard had MESSED with her DELIBERATELY -- giving her _only so much,_ of all the WRONG things -- letting this other ‘him’ _think_ that what it had given her had been the whole of it, when what she’d been given had not been that at all, missing several key points of useful information.

“The way I stayed awake for so long while I was trapped was that I kept _shredding_ mine. --It grows back at different rates depending on the body you are or aren’t in, and the shape and wavelength of your energy form.” And the Axolotl had been the one who taught her how to make forms. So if she still didn’t have a working Mindscape even after 500 billion years...

Miz was already nodding along, her mind racing through all the knowledge within her. So that’s why... it all makes sense now. Even when her constructs black out, her mind didn't GO anywhere. Because it had nowhere to go! That's why her consciousness would just... scatter and reform after a while.

“Hey, kid!” Seb exclaimed in a sudden revelation. “Why don’t you try it?! You said time isn’t moving in my world so we can take longer, right?! Besides, there isn’t much we can actually do in the Mindscape... It is boring!”

Miz flicked her fingers and pulled on the molecules in the air. “I can build constructs. And then I can build my Dreamscape.” She frowned. Things felt a little... heavier here than in Seb’s world. She wiggled her fingers and narrowed her eyes. Huh. Looks like she needs to use her hands for this. “So... temporary physical bodies, yay or nay?”

“YAY!” Seb exclaimed with an adorkable smile. “You know, I have a feeling I _could_ make them if I made a deal. My powers are subjected to the deals I make,” he explained. “No deal, no power.”

Bill tucked away _that_ little tidbit of information about this ‘him’ for later. It was _interesting_.

Miz rubs her chin in thought. “Maybe I can use that in my world to get around that barrier between me and the 3rd dimension. Deals are different after all…” She would be thrilled if this was a loophole she could exploit. Sadly, the animals on Earth weren't exactly... intelligent enough to make Deals with.

“Sure,” Bill told her. The solution seemed obvious enough to HIM, if that sort of thing also ended up working for her. “Toss a halfway intelligent being there through a portal if you want to get there sooner, make a Deal with it, see what happens?” Bill suggested. If she was only 500 billion years old and she wanted in NOW… and _wasn’t_ restricted from going other places physically, and _could_ make portals, _and could even write her own prophecy to match_ , then, WELL! Bill was ALL FOR spitting in the stupid lizard’s eye and getting a ‘him’ wherever they wanted to go even faster! (At least when it didn’t involve crossing what Bill wanted himself.)

“Kid, chill,” Seb laughed at Bill’s comment. He turned to look at the girl. “Miz?” Seb snapped his fingers to bring her back. “You spaced out.”

Miz blinks. “I do that a lot.” She says cheerfully. “What were we doing again?”

“Bodies! Meat-sacks! Flesh!” Seb grinned excitedly with a mad look in his eye.

Bill stared at her. Had she… not heard him?

“Oh right.” she turns to Bill, “So I might try out your idea after I get home. For now though, I wanna test out that physical body with a Dreamscape idea.”

Bill nodded. He’d wondered for a frozen moment while she’d been nonresponsive if the stupid lizard had _DONE SOMETHING_ to her… or taught her to make her bodies in a way that would keep her from thinking certain things. -- **Not** a fun thought! (...had sent chills down his human-ish body’s spine, in fact.)

Miz bit her lip and frowns in concentration. “Um... any requests for this body I'm making for you Seb? Like... are you going to walk around looking like Ford’s younger twin?”

“Um…” Seb hummed in thought. That was a good point. He might look similar to the Stans, but weren’t they old here? That would throw people off right?

Miz looked at Sebastian impatiently. “I can't hold these atoms forever. Well, I COULD but my hands are gonna cramp. And what if I had to scratch an itch? Word of advice, scratching yourself while holding a miniature sun is kinda... not the best idea.”

"I don’t work well under pressure!” Seb cried angrily. “Just do something, I don’t care! But not a monster or deformed creature, dude.” Seb warned.

Miz pouted. “Ok then. Whatever it is~”

“--Space out where you get the material from,” Bill told her. “I DON’T want to have to even out any suspicious holes you leave around in the ground for you! _Or_ explain any collapsing trees!”

Miz nods at Bill and turns her attention back to the world around her. She _pulls_ on the mass around her. Reality and physics bending in her hands. She grunts lightly in effort as a speck slowly forms between her hands. It twists and begins to bubble and froth as she poured more mass into it. Bones began forming a skeleton, muscles and organs twisting along the white bones with a slick, slimy sound.

“Damn, that’s gross.” Seb commented with a smile.

 

**((((((((((((((((((((((((MizBill is a perv warning))))))))))))))))))))**

 

Miz twitched and looked around for more mass to use. She pulled the dust out of the air, the pollen from the grass, some moisture in the air. The half formed body grew arms, legs... naughty bits.

She blushed at the embarrassed look on Seb’s face. “Look, if you want to be a guy I'm gonna HAVE to build those parts too you know!”

Seb blushed, but nodded. “Ok.” He said in a tiny voice. Was it dumb he was embarrassed she would know how his temporary _body parts_ look like? He was an adult damn it! Stop blushing!

Miz wiggled and blushed harder as she began forming the skin, pulling the organ over the flesh to cover it in a tawny hue. She added nails and hair, the keratin growing out until this body had a lustrous flowing mane of silky black hair. She molded the facial features carefully, floating up to manually press her fingers against the body’s head and acting much like a potter with their clay.

“That’s a human play-doh,” Seb commented aloud.

Miz grinned. “Almost done… are you sure you don't have any preference besides ‘male'?”

“Taller.” Seb said quickly. His real meat sack was short as it was. If he could change it for a while, why not by being taller? “And… Dark brown eyes… But just a tiny bit darker than mine…” He mumbled. He had realized the body she was creating was Asian so… Having Matsuda’s eyes would be nice.

Miz gives him a knowing smile. “Alright~” she chirped cheerfully. She stretched the body larger and taller, in the process making another... certain part of it’s anatomy larger as well. She giggles and flushes dark red. “I-I mean... need to keep thi-things proportional ri-right?!” She squeaks.

Seb groaned and covered his face with a hand. “Just-Continue, continue. I ain’t looking, you little pervert.”

Miz couldn't keep the crooked smile off her face. Or the drool. She hastily wiped her mouth. “N-normally it doesn't affect me this much since the constructs are formed pretty quickly… but this is going pretty slowly and um…” she couldn't finish explaining herself.

“Yeah... Of course…” Seb nodded as if he understood. He didn’t. He wasn’t attracted to people’s bodies like _that_!

 

**((((((((((((((((((((((Ok we're safe now... maybe)))))))))))))))))**

 

Miz coughed in embarrassment and, to Seb’s relief, formed clothes (a button down white shirt with a bow tie and black pants) over the soulless construct. It stood there, face blank and slack, eyes dull. “Um… so… just… slip inside it or whatever.” Miz shrugs.

Seb made a face and examined the body. Ok, it was not a real person, he got it, but the only time he possessed someone really left him feeling like hell after it. “Alright…” He stared at the face and hummed. “Dude, it looks pretty nice!” He blushed a bit. It was a handsome vessel, he would give it to him. “Is it normal? Is it normal to get attracted to the vessels you create?”

Mis groans and covers her face. “Yeeeees! I keep making them _attractive_! And it's so weird when I'm wearing them…”

“Haha! Show off!” Seb grinned before grabbing Bill2 by one of his tiny legs and diving in the body. Seb took a mouthful of air and opened his eyes before immediately falling to the floor. “Wow!” He smiled.

Miz tilted her head to look at the man on the ground. “Well? How do you feel? Joints pointing the right way? Lungs functional?”

Seb took a deep breathe and laughed. “Yeah, lungs functioning! And…” He slowly stood up with trembling legs, (Wow he was so far away from the ground!) “-Joints in place.”

Miz leans in with a shit eating grin “All parts _functional_ ~?”

“What do you mean-” Seb asked innocently, but then frowned when he understood. “-Miz!!” He whined.

_‘You are an idiot’ Bill2 said, back again as part of his mind._

She tumbles through the air laughing hysterically. Her little legs kicking as she clutched her stomach. “AHAHAHAH!”

“It is not fuNNy!” He whined. “Ew you are gross! ” He had to cover his lower zone because he feared Miz was seeing him.

“I LITERALLY know that body inside out.” Miz says deadpan.

“S-Still! It is mine now!” He argued with the girl. “Just make your body and shut up.” Seb pouted and crossed his arms.

Miz rolls her eyes. “Fine~” she starts the process again. Making a form that looked like hers. Seb looked away. Miz clothed the body in a blue dress with matching stockings. “Ok. We're good here.” She says after slipping inside.

Seb looked back at her and smiled slightly, but then he raised an eyebrow curiously. “So... Are these clothes like, part of the body?” Seb lifted an arm to examine the shirt he was wearing and poked at it, also glancing at his hand. “Hey, you gave him six fingers again!” He accused but laughed.

Miz shrugged. “They aren't nerve connected. I only do that with my triangle form.” She muttered something about overly sensitive bowties. Then she changed her socks black to see if that looks nicer. She'll change them back later.

The man nodded satisfied with the answer. “Whatcha think, kid?” He smiled and looked at Bill who had been watching quietly the whole time.

Bill shrugged. “Would’ve taken notes if I could’ve!” he said cheerfully enough. His stupid human-ish eyes could only catch so much, and his magical senses (and almost-completely muted weird ones, or the human-ish equivalent) weren’t really attuned to the right wavelengths to have picked up everything (or much of _anything_ ) of what she’d been doing. ...Not that he would have trusted it entirely if he had, what with the technique being straight from the stupid lizard when it had been LEAVING KEY INFORMATION OUT OF THINGS.

Still. Bill did get _something_ out of watching it.

Miz shook her arms out. “Hm. Getting used to gravity again is always a bother.” Bill nodded along; he could relate.

“Having Bill in my mind is always a bother.” Seb scratched his head. “He’s saying something, but I’ll ignore him.”

“Why would you ignore your other-you?” Bill said to him, rocking back and forth on his heels, trying not to clench his stupid teeth. “Sounds like a stupid thing to do to me!” And he’d always rather hated being ignored himself.

“Because…” Seb hummed. “I am actually trying to be a decent human and him invading my thoughts with screams and blood and destruction all the time doesn’t help. I know it sounds stupid, don’t look at me like that, but I-I _grew up_ human, it is different…” He muttered.

Bill had been about to ask what either of those things had to do with each other, but stopped at the ‘growing up human’ thing. And _he_ grew a bit contemplative. Because _Stanley_ had told him that some things were different, but _Stanley_ was _Stanley_. Yet here was another ‘him’, telling him the exact same thing.

Miz couldn't really say anything for or against the idea of ignoring part of herself. She always thought it was better to accept herself, even the parts she didn't like. Not that it meant she would listen to all the bad decisions in her head. Not that it said much considering she already did a bunch of awful things...

“...You ask him why he’s doing it?” Bill asked Sebastian. --Probably to get his attention, HAHA, but WHY did he want his attention? That was the main thing.

“Why he does it? Bill2 is me.” Seb told Bill with a sigh. “I can control him a little but at the end of the day... What he thinks is... what I think, whether I like it or not.” Seb confessed.

“And what's wrong with that?” Miz asked Seb calmly as she was taking this time to try and see how a Dreamscape could be formed. She didn't want to sit in the grass and considering this other Bill’s territorial nature she didn't want to go near the Shack for fear of upsetting the guy. She twirled her hands, made a small wooden stool out of some fallen tree branches and sat down.

“I lost 3 years of my life to him. I let him control my body... I know it is nothing for you, I know, but for me it- it was horrible…” Seb shuddered. “I don’t know what he did! I-I woke up in prison!” He snarled.

_‘Get over it, will you?!’_

Miz tilts her head curiously. “Well, as much as that sucks…”

“...You two were CLEARLY doing it wrong,” Bill ended, crossing his arms and looking at Sebastian oddly. “Three years can be important,” Bill said, thinking of Stanford's nearly three years in the ‘Falls as he rocked back on his heels. “It depends on which three.”

That said… “You acting like Stanford or something?” It was the only thing Bill could think of that might explain it. Because why wouldn’t he get along with a ‘him’ that was also himself, that thought the same things? Self-hate was a Stanford thing. Bill had gotten over _that_ particular brand of stupidity a LONG time ago. Because he’d decided. Whatever he did was fine because he was always going to remain himself. And if he did that, he’d never stop or give up or change his mind. If he did that, he’d get what he wanted. If he did that, everyone would, eventually, once they saw it, like he did. If he did that, it _didn’t matter_ what he did, he’d just fix it later. (He was going to _FIX E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!_ Make it all FUN for _everyone,_ free them all, right at the start! Just like that stupid lizard WOULDN’T.)

“Oh don’t worry!” Seb dismissed the situation and sat down next to Miz, also feeling Bill’s territorial nature. “We are fine, kinda, we are in a truce. Ever since I arrived to Gravity Falls...I have been more... me!”

“...And the next time ‘he’ doesn’t share three years with ‘you’ because you won’t listen to yourself when there’s something you need to do?” Bill asked him, frowning and smiling at the same time.

“He can’t.” Seb shrugged simply. “Not unless I give him control. I only gave him control because I was in pain and by giving him my body I would be asleep, unconscious, in a way.”

“Unless you _give_ him control?” Bill echoed. “You say that _now_ , but you did it _before_.” ‘And _yes_ , Stanley,’ Bill thought sarcastically, ‘I _am_ remembering that for most things when tied down like this, _effect_ comes _after cause_.’ “Are you both you, or aren’t you?” He frowned at him/them.

“Both of us... form me. I’m me because I was influenced by my human life and… My past life.”

Bill thought for a moment. Had this ‘him’s reincarnation been… “How much weirdness is in your ‘Falls?” Had Stanley punched them, too? _A_ Stanley? The logistics of being himself and also living through life at different times that overlapped, with memories that would have to match as circumstances evolved… threatened to make Bill’s mind ache all over again. Had to be two different Stanleys. They weren’t that different if they’d both been trapped, which meant their prophecies had likely been the same, which meant Stanley was the keystone with the most leverage. Bill wouldn’t be surprised if this other ‘him’ had died the same way.

\--Maybe this ‘him’ hadn’t come back whole from that, but as two different pieces that had never truly be combined yet, post-return. Could they be more cohesive here because they were pulling in the ambient weirdness, able to share more? Closer to no longer being as-separated? How separate were they? ...Should he even ask? He had never done something as extreme as this split sounded to be, or had become. Showing that much ignorance to their situation might be dangerous here...

Miz closed her eyes to start focusing. Crafting a Dreamscape? What would that even entail? Was it like when she formed her Madness Bubbles? That wasn't something Ax taught her. She did that all on her own. A brief thought distracted her. ‘ _The AXOLOTL lied to her.’_ she shuddered violently. It… it couldn't be true right?

A part of her wanted to deny the other Bill’s words. But... what if he was right. Would Ax REALLY lie to her?

Seb laughed and ran a hand through his new black hair. “How much weirdness? Lots of weirdness! Gravity Falls is damn crazy, isn’t it Miz!? ...Miz?”

Miz wasn’t paying any attention to the world around her, too lost in her own worry. Dad wouldn't lie to her... he wouldn't right? But... it made so much sense. But **why** would he lie to her? Her lips trembled. She didn't want to believe it. She would need to talk to Ax about this the second she got home.

“I meant _free-floating_ weirdness energy, not what the _surrounding_ junk has all soaked up already,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh.” Seb pouted. “No, I don’t know. I can’t feel it anyway.”

Miz groaned and held her head. This line of thought was making her chest ache. And every other part of her. ‘ _Just set this aside to think about later_ ,’ she shakes her head. Whatever the truth may end up being, she will deal with it later. She opens her eyes to see Sebastian pouting at the other Bill.

“What are you two talking about?” she asks.

“Gravity Falls and its weirdness.” Seb looked at the girl, his brown and yellow eyes widening a bit when he saw her.

“Well my Earth doesn't even HAVE a Gravity Falls yet. I do have dinosaurs.” She shrugs. “But if you mean Weirdness... um... there's a bunch of holes between the Nightmare Realm and the 3rd dimension where stuff is leaking out.”

“You have DINOSAURS?!” Seb exclaimed. “THAT’S AWESOME!!” He roared. “Have you possessed one?! If you haven’t, then I’ll be really disappointed!”

Miz giggles. “Of course I've possessed one. I've possessed multiple ones!”

Bill blinked at them, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t even like possessing gnomes, and these two were going gaga for lizards with brains _that_ small? ‘...I don’t get it,’ he thought, wondering if he was missing something. (If they really wanted to possess a useful and dangerous lizard, why not just grab one out of the intelligent Drac’fur species to make a Deal with, instead?)

“It's for the novelty of it.” Miz explains, catching a faint idea of Bill’s thoughts. “Something THAT dumb can't exactly fight back when I make them do what I want.” She frowns. That... didn't sound very nice once she says it out loud.

“...But you can’t _talk_ to it,” Bill said slowly, still not getting it. To _him_ at least, THAT was half the FUN!

Miz sighs. “Yeah, that is a downside.”

“Aaahhhh!!!!” Sebastian pulled his hair. “I wanna possess a dinosaur!! When we were kids, Ford always, always was giving us dino facts! He even got a book from the library,” Seb smiles fondly at the memory. “The only time I saw one, it tried to eat Waddles and I…”

Bill kept his mouth firmly shut. He could see it coming a mile away. He didn’t want to go on an ‘ _adventure_ ’ in the woods. If he told them about the dinosaurs in sap that were _here_...

As if reading Bill’s thoughts, the now black-haired man gasped. “Miz! I know where we can get dinos! There’s a cave I found with Pinetree and Shooting Star!”

Bill let his head fall backwards on his stupid human-ish neck and _groaned_. --Because what was he going to do? Lie to his other ‘him’s and tell them they weren’t there, when they actually were? ...They’d better not try to drag him along once they inevitably decided to go! He’d seen enough of how things went with Stanford and Fiddleford to know what was expected and see how things should go, way back when. He categorically REFUSED to be a Stanford in that situation, and _he was no Fiddleford!_

Miz perked up in excitement. “Oh! I know about that one! Didn't old man Glasses get eaten by one?”

“He isn’t old where I come from, but yeah! He came out though because I saw him around town days later…” Seb smirked. Haha, poop.

“I always wondered how the fuck he managed that with just some spoons…” Miz mutters to herself.

Seb grinned at Miz and bit his lower lip. “Are ya thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Adventure~?” Miz grins so wide her face threatened to split.

“ADVENTURE!” Seb roared and extended his arms to her, inviting her to be picked up. Mabel liked to be on his shoulders, maybe Miz would like it too?

(...Yeesh, had Bill called it, or had he called it?)

Miz looked at the arms held out to her and hesitantly accepted their embrace.

The man laughed excitedly and quickly, easily picked her up and put her on his shoulders. Miz screamed a little in fear at the sudden movement.

“I think you are the one to blame.” Seb grinned at her. “You made me tall.” He commented and grabbed her ankles so she wouldn’t fall.

Miz had her eyes closed shut and was squeezing Seb’s neck tightly. She trembled a little. “D-don't you dare drop me!” She stammered.

“I’d never!” Seb pouted exaggeratedly. “I told you you are safe with me, didn’t I?”

Bill pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced back over his shoulder at the Shack. Then he turned back to the two of them.

“Not that I care about whether you two get yourselves KILLED or not,” Bill began, because that _really_ WASN’T his callout. “But I’d better take down the perception filter I tossed up before you two crash-landed into my dimension here, and go back inside before they miss me.” He smiled a little at the thought of the reaction he was going to get from Stanford once he sees that Bill is female now.

Miz pouts but nods. “Oh right. You do you sir. We’ll um... try to be discreet about our adventure.” Speaking of which, she flicked her fingers and gave Seb an eyepatch for his unnatural eye.

Seb grumbled but didn’t comment when the black eye patch pressed against the left side of his new face. Did she give him a yellow eye in this form too? Maybe she didn’t and it just appeared… He’d never get rid of it...

Bill tilted his head at her in acknowledgment. “We can talk again later.” He pulled a slight face, thinking of all the possible outcomes of Stanley trying to take care of Stanford, and Stanford being… _Stanford_ , then said firmly: “Tomorrow.” Then let out a huff of breath. “Unless you think of something and leave, or die horribly first. --I can meditate and look through my Mindscape for this ‘exit’ door of yours in the meantime,” he shrugged. “And see if I can’t think of anything else that might work instead.”

Bill _almost_ left it at that, but he only hesitated for a bare moment before adding, to the girl ‘him’, “If you try to work on your personal ‘Dreamscape’ while you’re here, make a barrier to stay within. You’ll be vulnerable otherwise! It takes practice to get used to defending your ‘Dreamscape’,” he leveled with her. “It’s a direct backdoor entrance to your mind _and_ the Mindscape -- not just for you, but for ANYONE who knows how to get in. Takes some getting used to; things work differently there than in the general Mindscape!” And the last thing he needed was to be left holding the bag handling a local ghost that had possessed a Bill Cipher-built body -- let alone one that allowed for weirdness power channeling. Bill just KNEW that Stanley would find out and get on his case about it, if that ever happened.

Miz gives him a respectful nod. “Alright. Thank you very much sir.” For a clearly insane Bill Cipher, he was... nice? Sort of?

Bill just shrugged again. It had been awhile since he’d been anybody’s muse, let alone gotten a proper amount of respect from someone who didn’t feel inclined to kill him. It was nice! And as far as he was concerned, a ‘thank you’ wasn’t necessary. He’d take actions and information over those two words any day, and these two ‘him’s actions were more than enough to satisfy him, even before getting into the information that they’d shared with him that day! In a word: to him, they were **_useful_**.

“Thanks kid.” Seb smirked. He looked up at the girl on his shoulders. “You ready?”

Miz pats the side of Seb’s head. “Giddi’yup dude!”

Seb started walking while his charge and him starting chanting. “Dino Hunt! Dino Hunt!” as they walked into the forest.

\---


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: A lot more happens as can be read about in [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582). Mainly, this involves Miz and Seb getting back from their ‘dino hunt’, then scamming their way into getting themselves a hotel room for the night in-town, Miz trying out sleeping for the night, Seb actually sleeping normally for the night, and then the two of them both doing a ‘cooking show’ together early in the morning to make breakfast.
> 
> Meanwhile, -A Bill went back inside the house, events picked up where they left off with him at the end of [The Idiot Parade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15422892), and all of the events of [Consequences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/???) happened after that. It’s now the morning after the night of [Consequences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/???).
> 
> This is a “repost” of a section that is also included in the crossover chapter of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582).

\---

Ugh. Bill was _not_ feeling well. That sleeping draught had done a number on him. He was pretty sure he’d face-planted into his toast at least twice at the kitchen table that morning, but he’d been too bleary and out-of-it to really care. (Were drugs and things _supposed_ to feel like this to humans? Or was this just a problem with his human-ish body? His possessions had never felt like this!)

So Bill was laid out on his back on top of one of the picnic tables out in the middle of the yard, trying to concentrate well enough to clear the rest of the junk out of his system. ...And trying desperately to ignore Shooting Star, who was seated on the bench next to him, chattering away happily enough about SOMETHING he wasn’t even sure what, she might have one of those scrapbooks open, he didn’t really care…

“--GO inside and _GO AWAY_ ,” Bill told her blearily, raising an arm and dropping it across his face, to hide his eyes from the sunlight. Because he was pretty sure that his Stanley-assigned _penalty_ for having left the bedroom last night to needle Stanford was NOT supposed to include anything more than the having to be drugged asleep (in a way that he’d suggested and wanted to do to Stanford two nights ago) and sleeping longer than he was used to or wanted to, _losing time_.

Shooting Star pouted at him. He could hear it in her voice as she complained at him about something or another.

Well, Bill had had enough of this. He raised his head up, and SLAMMED it into the wooden surface of the picnic table.

The shock woke him up enough and cleared the cobwebs for long enough that he was able to visualize one of the mandalas and mutter out the shortened phrase he needed to, in order to force everything somewhat better again.

...Took care of the hit he’d just given his head in the process, too.

He coughed a few times as he sat up, feeling his head clear. He rubbed at his face.

He turned in place to shove his feet over the side of the table, to drop them down and rest them on the bench next to Shooting Star, and all but got in her face.

“WHAT DO YOU _WANT._ ”

Shooting Star looked up at him. “I want you to help me help Melody with her thing for Soos!”

“Fine. _Later_ ,” Bill ground out, scrubbing at his shortened (cut by way of Stanley) hair with a hand. “Just go back inside, or I WON’T.”

Shooting Star gave him a look. “I liked it better when it was longer.”

“I like it better this way,” Bill told her in return, then grinned. “Especially since you don’t go bothering me about messing with it when it’s like this, HAHA!”

Shooting Star let out a huff and crossed her arms, but she got up and picked up her... scrapbook, that she’d had with her.

“You promise,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I go inside now, and you’ll help me help her out?”

“I said so, didn’t I?” Bill told her, with a sigh and a grimace.

“Okay!” And with that, she finally turned and skipped away, back across the yard and up onto the porch. ...And finally, FINALLY, back into the house.

Bill muttered to himself about Pines twins being annoying and wanting things from him, and dropped a bit in place.

He glanced over at the driveway at the noise -- and then the sight -- of another few cars, as they pulled up and came to a stop in the parking lot for the Shack.

“Yeesh,” Bill said. Did they _really_ have to keep the Shack running? Couldn’t Question Mark just go back to… what, driving buses like he’d done when the Shack had closed down the first time? Bill didn’t particularly like the idea of half the house, on the opposite side of a single lousy wooden wall, basically being Grand Central Station for troop after troop of idiots who just...

Bill winced, then rubbed a hand over his face again. He was tired. That was what the problem was. He was tired, and in a lousy mood from getting caught by Stanley last night, and that drug had done a number on him. He’d only been awake for about a half-hour so far, and his stupid human-ish brain was making things difficult for him. He should be thinking of ways to make things weird for all those Shack-goers, and pissing off Pine Tree and Shooting Star with them. He should be thinking of ways to toss up a perception filter around the whole area, so that he wouldn’t get caught when those two other ‘him’s inevitably showed up!

He should be doing a lot of things, up to and including causing a second Weirdmageddon. But he’d let Stanley talk him into _this_... and talk him out of _that_ … ‘and-and-and’... it was annoying, and tiring, and all he REALLY wanted to do just then was SLEEP…

Bill twisted in place and laid back down flat on the picnic table, closing his eyes. He could think, and he could plan, and if he fell asleep while doing it? Then so be it. He had his sigil-stones on him, in his pockets, and he’d revamped those late yesterday afternoon…

\---


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Not much time has passed between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 here, just a bit of a short lie-down on top of the picnic table for -A Bill…
> 
> This is a “repost” of a section that is also included in the crossover chapter of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582).

\---

Miz hummed to herself as she walked through the forest in the direction of the shack. Even as she was doing this, half of her attention was on mentally poking around her newly established Dreamscape to try and find some way to get into her Mindscape.

Meanwhile, Seb walked besides her, reading for the first time what the heck they “bought”, because they didn’t pay for anything, really. Did the woman who believe their sob story pay? Huh, what a fool.

“Hey, Miz. Do you remember ordering a chocolate liqueur?” Seb asked grinning. He didn’t. “Cuz I don’t.”

Miz blinked slowly. “I like chocolate. I'll eat pretty much anything with chocolate in it.”

Seb examined the bottle. It was a good brand, he remembered seeing it on the bar he worked on a long time ago... He sighed, shook his head to stop thinking of the inevitable, and looked up. “Look! It’s the Shack! Finally!”

Miz grinned but slowed as they approached. There were groups of tourists everywhere. “Well they look busy today.”

“The Shack is always busy.” Seb shook his head. “Guess in every dimension there will be idiots who buy fake stuff.”

Miz looked over and gasped as she saw a giant bald gopherian wearing the Mr. Mystery suit. “Is that SOOS?!” She asks.

The man next to her smirked. “Yup! Question Mark!” Aw, always loyal and hard-working to this tourist crap. “You know, I’ve known him since he was a little kid. Damn, that makes me sound so old…” Seb grimaced.

Miz stared. Wow. She didn't think a human could look so much like that severely endangered alien species. “And... he is... human?” She questions just to be sure.

“Of course he-!” Seb stopped and looked back at this dimension’s version of his friend. Soos was too chill about him and his powers, about Gravity Falls weirdness and his teeth were kind of different too…

“I am not qualified to give you a proper answer.” Seb says finally.

Miz went closer. “I wanna see him!” She said. What if Soos really was part alien? Nothing is known about his father after all.

Seb ran after her with a smile. They were like undercovered ninjas, and their flesh was their costume!

Miz paused in place as Seb walked past her into the Shack with the tour group. Oh. Well. Her eyes dart around and she spots the tell tale glimmer of unicorn hair glued into the walls of the Shack. Well fuck a duck sideways with a chainsaw.

Meanwhile, Seb entered to the Shack, still not realizing his companion wasn’t with him. What the hell, this was exactly like his home! Maybe it looked a bit older, but this Shack has been running for decades! It must be one of those fixed points Miz told him about.

“Miz, look we-” He looked down and frowned. “Miz? Kid!” He looked around and eventually went outside where he found her standing out in the yard, staring at the front entrance with her arms crossed and glaring at him.

“Do you need an invitation to enter like vampires?” Seb asked with a teasing grin.

Miz rolled her eyes. “It seems your paranoid brother set up a barrier.” She inspected the edges of where she knew it to be. Looks like it would flash if she touched it, which would alert everyone to her presence. Best not to test it. She takes a few steps back just in case.

“It’s unicorn hair.” Seb whispered and looked at the bright colorful hair.

‘ _They used that to protect the Shack from us. In Weirdmageddon.’ Bill2 supplied to him usefully._

“Nice to know I'm welcome.” Miz pouts. She starts walking around the shack, around the barrier, to see where the parameters were.

Seb walked behind her snickering softly. Miz still had a hilarious pout on her face. He glanced at the picnic tables and noticed a figure laying down on top of it. “Hey, look, it’s Bill!”

Miz waved, “Yo! What's cookin’ good lookin’?”

It didn’t take long for Bill to sit up and do a double-take at where they were, and where they were and weren’t walking, to all but spring up from the picnic table, to make a beeline for the two of them.

“What are you _DOING?_ ” Bill hissed out at them. “ _Don’t_ pace the perimeter! They all know what that barrier keeps out and what it doesn’t, to look out for that!”

Miz took a few steps back and made it look more like she was slipping around randomly while examining the architecture of the shack.

Sebastian rolled his eye. “Because the rotting walls of the Shack are SO interesting…”

“--Too late,” Bill muttered, grimacing as he looked over his shoulder and saw Red poking her head out the door of the gift shop. He turned towards her and yelled out, “IT’S FINE! I’M HANDLING THIS! JUST STAY INSIDE!” And he immediately got behind the two of them and put a hand at each of their backs, to push them both forward into the treeline. “Don’t argue, just move,” he said tersely, force-marching them into the woods.

Miz had the decency to look sheepish at her fuck up. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Bill told them, as they came to a stop a few yards past the tree line. “Couldn’t put up a perception filter like yesterday, with the Shack open,” he groused. “But she won’t abandon her post. The twins are the ones you need to worry about,” Bill told them, running a hand down his face. “Should’ve told you about the barrier. Didn’t think…” he muttered, then looked up at them. “Why did you get so close in?” he said with a frown.

Miz nodded slowly. “I hope we haven't gotten you in trouble?”

“We wanted to see the Shack.” Seb shrugged, answering Bill’s question.

“Eh,” Bill said. “I thought of a couple ‘cover stories’, but none of them really work if they don’t trust me. Might be better to just go with something they won’t like, and just say that you’re both ghosts possessing a couple of comatose idiots and leave it at that. Pair of lovers on one last sightseeing tour together, to be able to pass on. Shooting Star will go for that, even if Pine Tree doesn’t, and run right over him wanting to help you out..” He glanced at Sebastian. “You don’t have a Shack?”

“I OWN a Shack.” Seb grinned. “I just wanted to see how similar they were.” He grinned at Bill’s words and snorted. “Heard that, Miz? We are ghosts in our last date and possessing comatose bodies! Isn’t that so romantic!?”

Hm. That... somewhat made sense to Bill, actually.

Miz pouts. “What? You don't think I could pull off an Eastern Spirit out on a vacation to the states? And Seb is my priest, here to carry my Shrine totem so I can move about like a human?” she puts her hands on her hips. “Have NEITHER of you watched The Cranky Girl who did Chores in Spirit Town?”

She rolls her eyes. “Also, Seb can go through the barrier so he's CLEARLY human.”

Bill blinked, then shrugged. “It’s your funeral? But anytime Shooting Star hears the word ‘lovers’, she turns her thinking brain off and drags Pine Tree into going along with what she wants, whether he’s suspicious as hell of everything or not. If you go with the priest thing, Pine Tree might get interested, or might get suspicious, but you’d better _believe_ that he’d try to bring Stanford into things. And that would leave Shooting Star a loose cannon. And Stanford breathing down all our necks.” He glanced over at Sebastian. “And if you think Stanford wouldn’t be able to figure out that you aren’t a priest…”

Miz pouted. “But I'm not gonna pretend to be lovers with him-”

“Ouch.” Seb put a half offended six-fingered hand over his chest.

She turned to Seb “-no offence.” before looking back at Bill “And Seb clearly entered the barrier earlier so we can't say he’s a ghost.”

“Fine,” said Bill. “Then we--”

He stopped as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from behind them -- from the direction of the Shack -- and Bill pulled a face as he turned around, not looking forward to trying to navigate the mess that was about to--

But he stopped and went completely expressionless as he came face-to-face with, _not_ Pine Tree, _not_ Shooting Star, but Question Mark’s ‘fiance’ -- Melody.

“Is everything all right?” Melody asked the three of them.

Bill was not expecting this. _At all_. He crossed his arms and remained silent as he tried to figure this one out. (He didn’t actually know her all that well. He hadn’t ever really looked into her much with his All-Seeing Eye, other than to see what happened when she had first intersected with his Zodiac, awhile back.)

Miz smiled as kindly as she could. “Hello miss! I'm sorry for the trouble. It's my fault you see? I'm not human and the rather well made barrier around your establishment kept me out.” She gestured to Bill. “This young man has been explaining the situation to us.”

Seb looked at her. “Seriously?”

Melody’s eyebrows went up.

“...You’re not a murderous video game character, are you?” she asked Miz with a slight frown, peering at her carefully. “Or one of those category-whatever ghosts? --Because we do have a strict policy against allowing either of those indoors,” she informed Miz and Seb matter-of-factly, then went on to say: “Outside tours only, and no crushing on the other tourists or tour guides, or turning anyone to wood; sorry.” Melody told the two of them firmly, before glancing over at Bill.

“No!” Bill interjected, then raised his hands up, palms outwards. “No no no. Just trying to help keep the agreement, here, that’s me! They were looking at the unicorn hair, I thought I outta tell them ‘look, no touch’! They’re not thinking about attacking the Shack,” Bill told her. “They’re-- just visiting,” Bill ended lamely, trying not to wince.

Miz nodded politely. “Oh no, nothing like that. It would be incredibly rude. Especially when I am a guest in this country.” She gives a short bow. “I, like most of the supernatural world, have heard of the wondrous nature of this valley and I had been meaning to visit for a while.”

She gives Melody a shy smile. “And everyone I asked has said that the Mystery Shack is THE go to place here.”

Seb examined the kind blonde woman. Who was she?! He had never ever seen her before!

Melody smiled back at her kindly. “That’s nice of you to say. I hope you’ve been enjoying your stay here in Gravity Falls so far. Though I am sorry that we can’t let you inside. I hope you understand. I can take you to the line for the outdoor tours, though, if you’d like?” Melody told Miz, then looked over at Bill for a long moment, then back at Miz again.

“Bill,” Melody said, “Why don’t you go back inside?”

Bill’s eyes widened and he dropped his hands.

“I am _perfectly capable_ of--!” he began hotly.

“I’m older than you,” Melody said. “That means I’m supposed to deal with things for you and help to keep you safe, just like Dipper and Mabel and Wendy, correct?”

Bill gritted his teeth. “--I’m not in any danger here. IT’S FINE.”

Miz looked worried. “Oh... um... I haven't caused any trouble have I miss?”

“Not at all!” Melody said, smiling. “But, well… Mr. Pines told me that Bill here isn’t exactly the most tactful when it comes to talking with other people right now.” She glanced over at Bill again. “I’m kind of surprised that he decided to talk to you. He usually stays away from anybody who is here to see the Mystery Shack.”

“Agreement,” Bill said flatly. “I was just checking.”

“And now you’ve checked, and now that you know that there’s no problem, you can go back inside the house,” Melody said. “I’d be happy to help them out, so that you don’t have to.” Melody looked at him. “I know you don’t like helping people out for no reason.”

Seb grinned. He didn’t know who this woman was but she liked her! She was wearing a Mystery Shack t-shirt, too… that must mean this Stan hired another person…

Bill clenched his jaw. He felt more than a little checkmated, here.

“Unless there’s a reason you want to help them out?” Melody said to Bill. Miz gave him a sympathetic look. With a small twist of power she telepathically asked _‘Um... testing, can you hear me? Should we meet up later?’_

Bill rocked side-to-side on his feet, caught between anger and… he-wasn’t-sure-what.

“Yes,” Bill said tersely.

“‘Yes’, you want to help them out?” Melody said, almost leadingly.

Bill hunched his shoulders slightly. “Yes.” He was looking anywhere but at her as he said, like he was having teeth pulled and didn’t think the pain was hilarious... “I want to help them out.”

Melody nodded. “Okay. Is this something that I need to worry about? Or Mr. Pines?”

Bill looked back at her, blank-faced.

“......No,” Bill said after a long handful of moments.

“Okay,” Melody said, glancing at Miz and Seb. “Do you need any help with helping them?”

“No,” Bill said, very off-put by her matter-of-fact attitude, and very off-balance as he wondered exactly what game she was playing here.

Melody nodded at him. “Alright,” she said, before turning back to the two others. “Do you need anything from me? Or is Bill going to be able to help you with everything that you need?”

“It will be ok, miss.” Seb said respectfully. “I am sure he can help us just fine.” He smiled.

Miz continued to try contacting Bill telepathically. _‘Hello? If you can hear me, blink twice_.’

“Alright,” Melody said to Seb, as Bill stared at Melody unblinkingly, like he was trying to see inside her head. “Bill, do you think Dipper and Mabel would be able to help with this, or would you like me to keep them busy and out of the way while you help these two out?” she said with a smile.

This felt like a trap to Bill. ...Which only made him want to spring it that much sooner, to get it out of the way! “--Keep them busy,” he told her authoritatively.

Melody gave him a long look. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell Mr. Pines that you’re out and about, once he’s back from his errands in town. Where will you be, so that I can tell him where you are?”

Bill let out an almost nervous laugh through a strained grin, turning his head to look over at Miz and Seb wide-eyed.

Miz looked between them. “I'm sorry for causing an issue. I didn't mean to…”

“It’s fine,” Melody assured her. “Mr. Pines told me that he’s been wanting Bill to get out and about and associating with other people for awhile now! He absolutely _refuses_ to go into town, but...” She had something of a sparkle in her eyes as she looked at them. “Really, this is a good thing,” she told them reassuringly. “...Though if you could stay near the Shack somewhat, that would be better. Bill isn’t really all that comfortable going too deep into the woods right now,” she confided to the two of them.

Bill’s grin fell off of his face like it was never there, and a somewhat strangled sound emanated from the back of his throat.

Miz nods in understanding. “Of course miss. We can stay right here.” She points past her, to an area out of the woods much closer to the Shack, where the picnic tables are. “So you don't have to worry about your employee’s safety.”

“-- _Not an employee!_ ” Bill objected immediately.

Melody laughed. “Yes, we know, Bill,” she said good-naturedly, as he let out an aggrieved huff. “He’s more of a guest, sort of. Mr. Pines is looking after him, and--”

“FINE YES LET’S TALK YOU TWO DONE NOW!” Bill yelled out, quickly marching his way through the underbrush and behind Miz and Seb again, to push them forward and hopefully away from the human who was being too confusing and normal and not-- any other things he wanted to think about just then.

Melody just smiled and followed the three of them along, trailing them back to the picnic tables most of the way. When they passed by the porch, she took a bit of a detour and walked up to the gift shop entrance instead, to enter the Shack again from there, leaving the three of them outside together and to their own devices.

Miz winced. “Well... that could have gone worse?”

Bill felt like his face was on fire. “PRETTY SURE WORSE ISN’T OFF THE MENU YET!!” he said abruptly, followed by a cut-off laugh that was almost his usual HAHAHAHAHA, except for the in-shock wide-eyed look he had going on while he did it, along with the tense body posture.

Sebastian sat on the picnic table and looked at Bill casually. “So, who's that girl?” He was actually curious after they FINALLY stopped talking. He was too impatient...

Miz sighs. “That’s Melody. She's Question Mark’s girlfriend... or at least, she's going to be, since I can guess that hasn't happened in your timeline yet.”

“Question Mark’s _fiance_ ,” Bill corrected her, rubbing the side of his right hand against his right temple over and over and over again as he talked. “Almost got killed by a digital girl once while on a date with Question Mark. Helped pull the plug on her, instead. Wasn’t here for Weirdmageddon. Question Mark loves her,” Bill rattled off as he began to pace back and forth in front of them. “ _I have no idea what she wants._ ” Which was a problem. In fact, it was _THE_ problem, as far as Bill was concerned. --Because how was he supposed to DEAL with her if he DIDN’T know what she WANTED?!?!?!

What did she want? --And, just as importantly, _what had Stanley told her about him?!?_

Seb blinked once and then twice. “Question Mark… QUESTION MARK HAS A GIRLFRIEND??!! He has a FIANCE?!?” He squealed. “Are you kidding me?!” His old friend had a girlfriend?! He couldn’t believe it!!

Miz grins. “I know right? Who’d have thought? That stud~” Really though, from what she remembers from Canon, Soos is a good guy and would have been the sweetest boyfriend to anyone who had the heart to look beyond his awkward exterior.

 **“** He likes blondes, he obviously takes after moi,” Seb put a hand over his chest proudly.

Miz frowns. “Blonde? She's obviously a brunette.”

“Dude, you blind?” Seb made a face. “She is dirty blonde!”

Miz narrows her eyes. “No, that was clearly a very light brown. Who are you calling blind?! You're the Cyclops!”

“Reality is an illusion, and hair color is a choice,” Bill said distractedly as he paced in front of them, almost completely caught and tied up in his own racing thoughts.

“My girlfriend had the same-” Seb shouted but when the words sank in he gasped and looked at the girl offended and betrayed.

‘ _Uuhhhh did you hear?! She doesn’t really like you! She’s mocking you! You are stupid for trusting her,’ Bill2 sneered in his mind._

“That... that... was a low blow…” Seb whispered, feeling tears welling up in his brown eye.

Miz looks a little guilty. “Sorry, that was mean.”

The man turned around and crossed his arms over his chest angrily. “I’d let you know, _demon_ , that I have perfect sight despite having just one functional eye! Sorry my Axolotl didn’t like me like yours clearly likes you and didn’t gave me a perfect vessel!” Then he went silent and closed his eye.

Miz pouted. “Seb? Seb?? I didn't mean it that way! I'm sorry!” she tugs at his shirt. “Seb??” she looks down guilty. “Look... I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I have nothing against Cyclops! Most of my friends are Cyclops! Some of them don't even have EYES!”

Seb just huffed and turned a bit a little more.

“EXTREME LUNCH MEATS ARE NOT THE FOOD OF THE FUTURE!” Bill yelled out abruptly, looking irate as he continued pacing. “AND HOW WOULD SHE KNOW MAGICIANS ARE NOT DATABLE! _WHO TALKED?!_ ”

Miz glanced at Bill, guessing he was scanning for information about Melody before deciding to leave him be.

Miz felt awful. She didn't mean to upset Sebastian. It made her feel like shit. The feeling built up inside her like a thick pressure pressing from the inside. It upset her to feel like this. She hated feeling like this. (She hated even more how _nice_ it felt when she made someone despair) She twitched when Seb refused to look at her. “Seb? I'm sorry~” she whined.

“ _Everyone_ bothered me like that growing up, _everyone_ called me that. They tried to take off my eye. **_I_** tried to rip off my eye with a fork and it didn’t work... I just didn’t think you’d call me that. It-It is a stupid hurtful memory.” Seb eventually murmured. “I overreacted, I’m stupid..”

Miz whined. The unhappy feeling wouldn't go away. She scratched at her arm. “I'm sorry too. I didn't know you felt so strongly about that…” She squeezed her arm hard, enough to leave bruises as she felt this awful feeling build up.

Seb coughed, still upset, emotions were a pain in the ass, and turned to look at the teen still pacing. “So, did you think of something for us to go back?” He looked at the bottle of liqueur he left on the table. A drink didn’t sound so bad right now...

Bill didn’t hear him. He was staring at nothing they could see and muttering under his breath to himself at an almost-frenetic rate by this point, as he continued to pace back and forth, back and forth in front of them in the yard.

Miz groaned as she continued to feel awful. She needed to do something to relieve this sensation. She thumped her head onto the table and discreetly channeled her energy out into the ground, making the grass more vibrant and healthy as she tried to get rid of this pressure inside her. She REALLY doesn't want to explode right now. Curse negative emotions for giving her such a power boost.

She saw Seb reaching for the bottle. Huh... she could use some chocolate right now. Food always made her feel better…

(She disregarded the fact that food tends to give her more energy to burn, it's fine. There were plenty of plants around for her to discard her energy into.)

Seb opened the cap of the bottle, threw it away and chugged it down.

“Hey! I want some too!” Miz whined. She reached for it but Seb was too tall. “Gimme!” she helped **get** that chocolate, it belong to **her** too.

“NNNo!”

Bill abruptly stopped pacing and sat down where he stood on the grass. Cross-legged, he propped his elbows on his knees, and held his forehead in his hands. He was shaking slightly, but didn’t seem to notice this. He wasn’t muttering to himself anymore, he just look weary-eyed as he sat there where he was, breathing.

“No!” Seb shouted and drank a bit more. “Go ask for liqueur from your Cyclops friends.”

“I SAID I was sorry! Pwease pretty pwease gimme some chocolate?” Miz jumped ineffectually for the bottle. Seb was taking full advantage of his new taller height. “Haha! Get it if you can!” Seb raised the bottle over his head.

Miz growls. Though secretly she was glad he wasn't mad anymore... even if he was just being kind of a brat. Miz turned to see Bill sitting on the ground. Not really thinking it though, she went over to grab him and drag him over. Maybe she could stand on him like a step stool? “Help me get the bottle!”

When chocolate was on the line (chocolate didn't exist out in space and she missed it so much), she wasn't one to think rationally. Not that she ever really thought rationally. She was upset and she wanted chocolate NOW.

When Sebastian still didn't let up, drinking the sweet liquid down and looking so goddam SMUG about it, and Bill’s reaction to Miz grabbing him was to frown at her and jerk his arm out of her grasp, with an annoyed, “ _Don’t touch me_ ,” before going back to whatever he was thinking about, Miz decided she’d had enough. She dropped the argumentative Bill and flicked her fingers. Suddenly she had her very own bottle. A perfect copy of the one Seb was holding, except hers was still full. She looked right at Seb and took a smug swig from her bottle (coughing a little at the burn. This was pretty strong…) yeah, she can make her own!

Try to keep chocolate away from her? Not gonna fuckin' happen.

The man pouted. “It is not fair!” He whined. “You can create your own-your own stuff!” Seb glared and blinked uncoordinatedly. Maybe he should stop drinking... Nah…

“But MINE is bettuur because it is the original one! You made that one with dirty air molecules! Polluted air molecules!” He gulped down a bit more to prove his point.

Miz took another swig of her bottle. “Nah ah! Mine is better because... because I made it and I'm awesome!” She blinked quickly. Oh. This was way stronger than she thought. Maybe this was a bad idea... naw, she wanted things between her and Seb to be friendly again and playful banter always worked wonders for that sort of thing. She took another large mouthful of the bottle just to prove a point.

The black haired man whined, not used to playful banter. When someone annoyed him, it was for real, meaning to hurt him. “Nuuuhh uhhh!” The immature man stuck his tongue out. “You are mean! And a _demon!_ And a shorrttyyyy!”

Miz swayed. “ExCuse you ssssir! I am a GOD and... and you're only tall because I MADE you tall!” she was sensitive about her size ok?! And she wasn't mean! She was ‘bad' like... the opposite of ‘good' but she wasn't MEAN. another mouthful of the burning creamy liquid was consumed.

“YOu are not the bosss of me! And I was an average height befour!!” Seb angrily turned to his bottle and drank it. He pouted when he realized the sweet and wonderful and burning liquid wasn’t coming down anymore and turned it upside down, watching a single drop fall to the grass.

Miz turned to Bill and held out her bottle. “Hey! Try thish an’ tell... tell THAT guy that mines ish better than hish sssupid bottle!” she gives Seb a smug look that was off to the right of where he was actually standing. “Becashee MY bottle doeshunt run o-out of alcohol!”

Bill frowned up at her, having kept more awareness of his surroundings since she’d grabbed him. (Not that he thought she was going to kill and eat him or anything -- not on purpose -- but… it had been a reminder that he’d not been paying as much attention to his surroundings as he should have been.) Because they were acting like… any other humans he’d watched getting drunk on some form of alcohol together. Weird. ...Was it all just an act?

Sebastian growled drunkily and his eye turned red. “I’m NOT StUpiD!!!” He shrieked loudly. A second pair of arms sprouted out of his sides, and his four hands caught in flames, but in his state, he was unable to hold them too long. Seb whimpered and hit his head against the table. “M’ not sstupid…”

Miz laughed at him, wobbling around as she dropped her bottle near Bill. “You can't ev-even stand!” She almost fell over but caught herself on the side of the table. Oh~the world looked so bright and sharp right now.

...Given that Sebastian had just outed himself as ‘not human’ with _that_ little display, Bill had a feeling that no, this wasn’t just an act. Bill eyed the bottle of alcohol that the other ‘him’ had dropped.

Seb stayed with his head on the table and sobbed his drunk heart out, sensitive to everything and anything right now. “I-I…”

Miz felt a little bad that he was crying again. That wasn't what she wanted. “H-hey... are you... okay dude?” She crawled over and flopped onto his back, clinging on as she clumsily patted his shoulder. “I didn't know you... um... were so... feel bad about this? I wasn't trying to hurt your feelsings…”

“I-I never had anyone to drink with!” The man sobbed. “Drinking is-is bad! Bill2 will-will control again me! Control me again... He tattooed my zodiac on my baaacckkk!” He sobbed. “While-While the real one burnt me!”

Bill winced, thinking of the anchor down his own back. It wasn’t exactly the same thing, but...

Miz hugged Sebastian. “Ish okay. I'm here n-now... and... an’ I won't let him... gets anymore tattoos. ‘specially not All Star.” She nuzzled against his head. “An... and alshhho you're NOT sshupid.” She pet his hair clumsily.

Bill huffed out a breath and propped up his chin on his fist as he watched them. Hadn’t the girl called the _bottle of alcohol_ stupid, not Sebastian?

“i aM stupid!” Seb mumbled but melting under the soft touches of the girl. “Ev-Everyone say so... An-And, my brothers... I-I pushed them…”

Miz was distantly thankful for the mild perception filter still over the two of them leftover from the day before, when they’d been laughing in the elevator. It wasn't much but it did block sensitive information from reaching the ears of others. Anyone looking at them would see two crying drunks talking about nonsensical things.

“Dat wasshunt you fault tho!” Miz assures him. “Ish a fixed point... an... an... it would happens any... anyway…”

“Weally?” Seb sniffed.

Miz nodded, slumped onto his back. “It’s like... a thing that... that alwashhh happenss…” she was slowly sliding down his back “If YOU dinnen pushy them in then... something ELSE would have…”

“I want ‘em back... Even if Fordsie hates me and call me stupid…”

Bill grimaced and almost objected. _Almost_. But he didn’t know this other ‘him’ (or this other ‘him’s _brother?(!?!!)_ ), to be absolutely _sure_ that telling him that Stanford wasn’t worth feeling that way about would be the best advice he could give. (Not least of which because, if this ‘him’s relationship to Stanford was somehow anything like his relationship with Liam had been… it’d be about as well-received as a heart attack, and for good reason!)

Miz was on the ground by this point, lolling her head against Seb’s leg and trying to pat his back but at her angle she could only reach his butt. “Getting... them back ish alllsho a fixed pont.” She says sleepily. The grass and plants around her were growing quickly, vines and leaves curling up as lovely flowers bloomed.

Bill’s eyebrows went up as he saw the grass and things growing, but without magic he could sense -- only that underhum of weirdness that he could barely feel at the moment. He not-quite scrambled to his feet, starting to become unsure if watching the two of them for more information without intervening was worth it when… he was _right there with them_ … in the meaty FLESH...

Seb lifted his head a bit and looked at the girl resting her head on his leg. “Are you touching my butt?” He grinned. He was... less shy drunk.

Miz blinked slowly. “Dis is your butt?” she tilted her head to try and see but just topples over onto the growing flower patch around them.

Seb laughed, his meltdown forgotten, and threw himself to the grass, falling backwards with a thud. “Hiii…”

Miz laid on her back, flowers blooming around her. “Oh... hiii~” she blinked. What were they doing again? Something about a door?

“Heeyyy! You! The kid!” Seb sat up to look at Bill. “Why are you there!? Driinkkkk~”

“I…” Bill actually considered it for a long moment. They were ‘him’s who were almost exactly like him, so they wouldn’t hurt him, right? And it would be a good idea to find out whether his body reacted the same way to alcohol as theirs did, wouldn’t it? It would be safer to drink with _them_ present than anyone else he could think of. Better than doing it around his Zodiac, who would take advantage of his weakness if he did it around _them_. Right? They’d ask _questions_ , or try and push him _around_ , and…

...Bill had never tried out this type of alcohol before. He’d seen it, sure, but… it was a bit less clean-burning than the stuff he’d usually set on fire as a being of pure energy, and he had a body now.

He couldn’t clean it out and control it the same way he did his energy form -- he literally was what he ate. And he was highly aware of this fact; he’d been careful what he’d fed on and how well and carefully he’d purified what he fed on before taking it in when he’d been in the Nightmare Realm for a reason: he’d wanted and needed to stay completely and wholly HIMSELF. (If he hadn’t, he’d have risked losing track of _EVERYTHING_ important.)

...But he was already eating things like toast that he’d burned within an inch of its life, with lime jelly and black pepper added to it to try and make it appropriately horrible-tasting and almost edible. _That_ had at _least_ as much extraneous junk in it as _this_ stuff did.

Bill looked at the two other ‘him’s and frowned. _They_ didn’t really seem to be that different right now, though...

...Bill slowly bent over and picked up the bottle Miz had dropped.

He turned it over in his hands.

\--And then he straightened abruptly and whirled in place at the sound of approaching footsteps, cursing loud and long within his mind. He instinctively not-quite-hid the bottle behind his back as he turned to face whoever it was that was approaching them _this_ time.

Miz saw a worried Melody and younger Pines twins coming out of the house and towards them. Melody looked a little guilty over being unable to keep the twins away but the rapidly expanding area of lush greenery was… pretty worrying and she couldn't stop them from wanting to check it out. She’d needed to come out to check on what was going on herself, and knowing she hadn’t been able to stop the twins before with what had happened with the animatronics… she’d known it was a losing battle.

Letting them come with her rather than sneaking out meant it would be more likely that she could keep them within the magic dead zone area-thing Mr. Pines had told her about, too. And she might need some help in distracting the two visitors to grab Bill and yank him inside it, if need be. Mr. Pines had been pretty clear how easily Bill tended to get in over his head sometimes -- and that was pretty easily.

Miz grinned drunkenly at the twins. Ahhh! So cute! She wobbled over and squealed “Oh my goooosshhh~you... two are... sho-ssshhhootin’ sstar~and... and... Pine Tree right?” Bill winced as she giggled at them. “You're….jush as cute as I thought yooou would be~” She had seen Seb’s twins but they were sleeping, THESE kids were awake and those funny looks on their face were sooo adorable!!!

Sebastian glanced at his companion with a confused expression but his drunk brown eye widened when he saw the kids. “PIINEETREEE!!” He smiled widely. “Shooting Star! Wha-Wha you doing heerrree?! You-You were in bEd!” Miz had enough awareness to reach blindly at the taller man while shushing him.

“HAHA,” Bill said, wondering how the heck he was going to balance all this… well, at least they weren't going to hurt his Pine Tree and Shooting Star, right?

Then Bill went a bit still as the thought occurred to him that, technically, because they weren't part of these other ‘him’s Zodiacs that they had no real investment in keeping them alive in the least. And he knew he wouldn’t be all _that_ worried about not messing with a set of Pines who weren’t his, when he didn’t have to worry about the body he was in and there were no real consequences...

Bill turned to Melody with a slight look of panic, trying to think of what to say quickly, and... saw her put a hand on each of the kids’ shoulders, stopping them just inside the barrier.

...which was _very_ easy to see from the curve where the grass was growing like crazy, and not. Bill let out a long breath and relaxed, looking up at Melody a bit wide-eyed, because how had she known?

“W-what are these guys?” Mabel asked, fingering the grappling hook behind her back. Dipper was frowning as he flipped through a journal, not even bothering with the electric gun holstered at his side.

“Whaaa? M’ not a What!” Seb pouted. “You should show a bit more respect to yurr elders! M’ gonna tell yuur dad you are being MeAn to your u-”

Miz pulled on Seb’s shirt. “Wrong twinsss... remember? These are... are... his twinsshh~” she points vaguely in Bill’s direction. A few colorful flowers bloomed along the path of her gesture.

“ _Really_ , Pine Tree?” Bill enthused loudly, stepping forward and taking point as a distraction from… well. “You can’t figure this one out on your own?” he not-quite teased, buying his other ‘him’s a handful of seconds to get their act together.

“Wut?” Seb studied the confused twins staring at them. Not his niblings…? But... they look like them! They must beeee. He should probably obey the girl Bill demon though. She knew more of this crazy stuff...

Dipper, listening to Bill for once, actually took the bait. “Rapid plant growth…” Dipper muttered as he scanned through the journal. “No glowing… or floating... so it's not a ghost…” Miz walked up and he winced when he caught a whiff of her breathe. “Is that… CHOCOLATE ALCOHOL?!” he gasps, after smelling it on her breath and glancing over at Bill, who had not hidden the bottle all that well behind him.

Miz nodded. “Chocolate is-ish great~you humans make the BESSH foods an ssshuff!” She wobbled dangerously and Dipper instinctively stepped forward and caught her when she tipped over. “Whoa!” he cried as he was barely able to hold her upright.

Upon seeing this, Bill immediately stepped forward and handed off the bottle to Melody almost thoughtlessly, as she crossed the barrier herself and made a gesture for it; Bill took Miz off Dipper’s hands as quickly as he could, and lowered her carefully to the ground, while Melody drew Dipper back inside the barrier again -- to Dipper’s immediate recognition and suspicion, as he craned a head up at her.

Dipper realized he was getting managed by the two sort-of adults. And something had to be off, if Bill was trying to be _helpful_ to a couple of strangers. He needed his Mystery Twin to help tag-team the problem with him on this one. He turned to stare pleadingly at Mabel. “Mabel?”

“Don't worry bro-bro, I got this!” Mabel said confidently, walking over to kneel next to Miz. Dipper didn’t miss that Bill didn’t try to stop her, but he also noticed how very carefully Bill was watching the two of them -- the cryptid and his sister -- once Mabel crossed the barrier line.

“So. You got into some chocolate alcohol, huh?” Mabel grinned at Miz. She heard the story about chocolate and, well, _most_ aliens and cryptids, too. “As someone who once ate a whole pack of smile dip I can tell you that you might be seeing wild colors and talking dogs right now. But they're not real and you’ll wake up later feeling like you never want to eat again.”

“Mabel, they're drunk, not high.” Dipper groaned. It was pretty clear to him from their behavior that it was the second set of symptoms Great-Uncle Ford had told them about (enhancement of the effect of the base substance -- in this case alcohol), not the third set (hallucinations or a drug-like high) or the first set (no reaction at all).

“I know bro-bro.” Mabel patted Miz’s hand. “We should still get them somewhere dark and quiet so they can calm down?” She glanced over at Seb with a frown, remembering that blurry transformation he’d done for a few seconds, which they’d spotted from the windows, but hadn’t been able to see too well for some reason. (It had left her twin pretty sure that Bill was up to something bad. She wasn’t so sure about that yet, herself, but she’d had to admit that what Melody had told them _had_ sounded pretty suspicious!) “Also, I think we need to get them away from the tourists.”

Dipper nodded nervously. “Where are we gonna bring them? They can't enter the shack?” He turns back to his book. “I still can't figure out what they are. You said they're foreign right?” He looked up at Melody, to confirm.

Melody nodded. “Yeah. The little girl said she's a visitor to the country.”

Dipper groans. “Great-Uncle Ford has almost no research on eastern supernaturals! I have no idea what they could be!”

Bill snorted. Just because Stanford hadn’t written it down didn’t mean he didn’t know it. Bill had tried to tell him about that whole set of cryptids way back when, in his dreams, but he’d more or less been blown off at the time. The ‘Falls had been too shiny and new. He’d kept trying to seed Stanford’s dreams with the information, but he had no idea how much he’d retained.

...He’d be very surprised if the dumb idiot hadn't done a little more research before he’d gone on that boat trip of his, though. Any excuse to ignore Stanley…

Bill suddenly realized that if he said anything to Pine Tree about ‘Great-Uncle Ford’ probably having the information in one of his latest journals, that _that_ would have the very unfortunate side-effect of summoning the man from below… or wherever the idiot was right now.

“Haha! Great Uncle! Ford is an old man.” Seb started laughing loudly. Blue fire sprouted to life in his hands before disappearing again. Bill tried very hard not to tense or react at all, not realizing how hard he was clenching his teeth. What Bill didn’t realize was that blue fire wasn't all that odd to them, and that the behavior of these other Bills wasn’t coming across as Bill-like to the rest of them. The ghost Dipper faced in the Northwest’s mansion had blue fire, and that explanation was what came to mind for them first, with them already thinking about ghosts.

“I wanna see ‘im!” Seb whined but Miz shook her head.

“No Ssseb! Shush! You drunk... you dun get to talk…”

“You drunk tooo!!” Seb replied. “And-And No OnE can silence ME!”

Dipper had noticed the flames and did back up a step _very_ quickly; he knew exactly how dangerous ghosts could be, and he hadn’t seen Seb cross the barrier earlier to know his ghost theory was a bit off.

Mabel rolls her eyes at her brother's worried look. “Dipper. You're missing the obvious. Watch a professional deal with this.” Bill couldn't help but wince at the language used, and he watched with more than a little uncertainty as Shooting Star pulled Miz into a sitting position and gave her a friendly smile. “Hi! I'm Mabel and I'm human! What's _your_ name and species?”

Miz blinked and her head lolled over. “I'm Miz... and... um... have you-you ssseeen the movie Wolf Girl and Deer Boy Stop the Worm Pigs and Explosion Humans?”

Mabel nodded. “I love that Jibili movie!”

“I'm... like... kinda like... that freaky god deer thing... esss-essept I'm a DRAGON!” Miz giggled, keeping to the story she had made up, at least to herself. The vines from the growing plants curled around her.

“LiAr!” Seb cried behind her. “No I'm not!” Miz protested.

“You are not that! Don’t lie!” Seb proclaimed, leaving Bill wanting to cover his eyes with his hands. “I am human though! And It is HorriBle!” Seb whined sadly.

“You aren’t human though.” Dipper mumbled under his breath and Seb grinned and crouched in front of him.

“Yes I am.” Seb insisted.

“No you aren’t.” Dipper argued with the drunk magical creature who seemed to believe he was human.

“Don’t argue with beings more powerful than you about what they are, Pine Tree, it’s rude,” Bill muttered under his breath at the kid. He stepped forward almost across the barrier and turned to stand at Pine Tree’s side, as a silent warning and also a display of ownership. This was one of _HIS_ Zodiac.

“Yeah, Pinetreee!” Seb grinned. “M’ more powerful…”

“ _FOR NOW_ ,” Bill said, shooting Seb a long glare right in the eye, setting a proprietary hand on Dipper’s shoulder. He was thinking more about defending his choice of solidarity to the other ‘hims’ than what Dipper might get out of that piece of information, and he missed the slightly shocked look Dipper shot up at him at what he’d just said.

Miz whined. “I... I! I'm a dr-dragon! See?!” She shifted partially into Xin’s form, antlers growing from her head and a long scaly tail tearing its way out from her dress. “I... I even have worsshiperssss... I make it rain and I help the... the crops grow…” her scales were golden in color and rectangular shaped, like tiny bricks.

“But you create your bodies.” Seb mumbled innocently and Miz turned to glare at him.

“Sssshut up, Sebastian!!” she smacks him with her tail lightly. “I HAVE to... create bo-bodies becaushhhh... my true form ish invi-inve-in... whash the word? You... .ca-cannot see me???”

“Ghost.” Seb laughed and Dipper looked between them, raising an eyebrow.

“Invisible?” He suggested to the creature.

“Shpirit! Yesh! Invishible shpirit!” Miz claps her hands.

“We ALL have a-a true invishible form!” Seb argued, hugging Dipper by the shoulders. “We are spiris... using meatsacks to-to live in this dis-isgusting world…” He said in a drunk philosophical way. Bill’s hand on Dipper got knocked aside at Seb’s jostling.

Bill could just about feel the confusion and alarm steaming off of Pine Tree, just by the expression on his face. “Remember how I kicked you into the Mindscape that one time, Pine Tree?” Bill said with a calm he didn’t quite feel. “It’s exactly like that.” He sent a long look Seb’s way. Should he yank this other ‘him’ off of Pine Tree?

(That would make it clear to Pine Tree how much he _didn't_ like other beings messing with what was his, though, and to Seb exactly how _much_ he considered Pine Tree to be his, to not want to risk even _that_ much. If someone did _that_ with _their_ Zodiac in front of _him_ , he knew _he’d_ definitely get interested enough to push things, just to see how far that other him would go.) “Only this one didn’t go back to his original body,” Bill continued his explanation to Pine Tree. “He went to one she made for him, instead.”

“Yeah... what he said.” Seb nodded giggling.

Miz giggled. “I like making bodiessss... I made hi-hisses form re... really hot~”

Miz shook her head to try and refocus her vision. She twitched when she felt hands on her tail. “Huh?” She glanced behind her to see Mabel petting her tail. “Oh... that feelsh kinda….naish…” She purred.

Dipper tried to shove the drunk man’s arm off him. Melody decided it was time to step in. Strange drunk man hugging a child? Yeah, no. “Alright sir. Maybe you should go sit down at one of the tables until this passes.” She gently took Seb’s hands and led him over to the seat all while Seb laughed out loud.

He was drunk as hell and everything was spinning. Wee!

Bill steered -- not quite shoved -- Pine Tree back across the barrier. “Stay here,” he said under his breath, before letting go of him and striding right over to where Miz and Mabel were.

Miz yawned sleepily. Having her own dreamscape now sure made it so she was capable of feeling tired... plus, she’d been awake since early this morning... and Mabel’s gentle petting felt so nice. She would normally be tense at such a thing but she'd gotten used to having Pyronica’s kids touching and hugging her... and Mabel was safe. She was Mabel! Like... the sweetest person ever! She wouldn't hurt her…

Miz purred sleepily and nuzzled her face onto Mabel’s shoulder. Mabel “Aww~”s and reaches a hand up to scratch at the dragon’s (baby dragon?!) head, marvelling at the smooth rounded antlers. They looked like gold. Were they real gold? Mabel’s only seen a few movies with eastern dragons and they were all Good spirits. Like Haki the river god from The Grumpy Girl who does Chores in Spirit Town. He was a super cute dragon boy. Mabel secretly had pictures of him and fantasies about getting to ride her own dragon.

“Miizzz~” Seb looked at the twins of this dimension. Dipper was looking at him distrustful... Mabel was ignoring him... Mabel never ignored him! He wanted his own kids!

“I wanna goo back to myy hommeee!” Seb sobbed dramatically, hitting his head against the picnic table repeatedly.

“Oh?” Melody said in worry as she tried to stop the man from injuring himself. “I'm sure once you've sobered up you can do that.”

“I don’t neEeed to be soBEr!” Seb sniffed. “Miizzzz!!” He cried again. “Make a deaaall with Biiiilll sho we can gooo homeeee!” What if that worked?! In his drunk, sad mind it seemed plausible. Where was the bottle?! He wanted chocolate!

“No deals, but I _will_ help you both get home,” Bill said firmly, yet about as vague on the details as possible, given the audience they currently had.

Miz stirred sleepily “Dad sayssss I'm no-not allowed to make dealsh while I'm drunk…” she pawed at the grass as she leaned against Mabel’s soft sweater. “But... I can grant wishes... kinda... they take lessh effort…”

Mabel’s eyes lit up even as Bill’s eyes went wide and Dipper began shaking his head. “No Mabel! Don't you dare!” He cried in panic.

“I wish for a BOUNCY CASTLE!” Mabel said loudly, before Bill could reach down and slap a hand across her mouth. Miz hummed cheerfully. “Okay…” she sighed happily “But pet me more first…” get something and give something, like a Deal without the handshake. An agreement of sorts, less dangerous for everyone involved.

“Mabel don't-!” Dipper shouted but Mabel was already scratching her fingers along Miz’s head. Their pet cat back home loved being scratched behind his ears and Mabel was sure this baby dragon would like it too. Miz PURRED and arched her head back. Aw shit yeah that felt _goood_ ~

“A bouncy castle right?” She mumbled sleepily before opening her eyes to glance around. What's a good place to put it... ah, there's room there…

Bill gritted his teeth and immediately grabbed Mabel up in his arms and hauled her bodily up and away from Miz, straight across the barrier line. He did not trust ‘wishes’ or this girl ‘him’s control at the moment -- especially tired and drunk!

The plants around Miz disintegrated and the dust was blown over to a large empty space a few feet from the edge of the forest. The humans all stared in awe as the plant dust swirled around and formed a large bouncy castle in various shades of pink. Mabel’s eyes went wide as she squealed. “Ahhhhh!!!!” She said excitedly.

She turned to Dipper with a wide grin. “Dipper! Can we keep her?” He shook his head with a scowl “No Mabel! This is dangerous! That thing is not a pet!”

Seb snickered from his spot on the table. “I wanna a wish too, pet.” He teased.

Miz whined. “No. Only Mabel gets wishes… cause... cause... she's awshome!” She was so nice! She even pet her! Then Miz whined a little again from the ground as she realized the soft petting had stopped.

“M’ awshomee too!” Seb whined back. “Wish!”

Melody frowned. This was getting out of hand. “Mabel, you shouldn't take advantage of a drunk person.” Should she call for Mr. Pines? These two didn't SEEM dangerous so far. The little girl looked quite innocent, purring like that.

Bill wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

The sudden appearance of the Bouncy Castle definitely caught the attention of the tour groups. Soos was coming over with a group of them, trying very hard to come up with an excuse for the bright pink object. Some children wanted to play on it and Soos, well trained by his mentor, immediately said “$10 for 5 minutes in the bouncy castle, dudes!”

Money was thrown at him as screaming children began crawling onto the magically formed toy and began jumping. Mabel pouted as Bill held onto her, not letting go. She wanted to play on it too! It was HERS after all.

Seb watched everyone rush to the bouncy castle and grinned. Chaoosss!

‘ _Let’s make it more fun, don’t you think, kid?!”_ Bill2 whispered in his ear and Seb grinned madly.

He raised a hand and the castle started floating, making the children shriek excitedly.

Dipper was pulling at his hair. “No! Nonononono! This is bad! This is so bad!”

Mabel could tell the man levitating the bounce castle wasn't being malicious, he was smiling and looked like he was trying to help make things more fun. Unfortunately she knew that other people wouldn't understand that so she waved her hands around, getting Seb’s attention. “Um sir? Can you put them down please?”

Seb grinned. His niece was always so cute and adorable! “Sure, kid!” The yellow glow around his hand disappeared and the castle started falling.

“GENTLY!” Dipper cried panicking. This was so bad! He should go get Ford... but Ford might try to shoot them and despite his paranoia, even Dipper could tell these two weren't malicious spirits. Anything who would give his sister a Bouncy Castle couldn't possibly be evil.

The man laughed and easily caught the castle before it hit the floor. “OOPS! ALMOST THERE! HAAAHAHA!”

Melody frowned. Ok. This needed to stop. Unfortunately there was no place she could bring these two drunks since the ‘magic barrier’ around the shack would prevent such a thing. Maybe she needed to distract them somehow.

“Hey Dipper.” Melody turns to glance at the boy. “Can you go tell Soos to move the bouncy castle away from here? I know there's some room on the other side of the Shack where we can put it.”

“--Sebastian, you come over here,” Bill said abruptly, backing up Mabel a little bit further, as he thought of something. “Mabel wants to pet you, too.”

“Oh!! Can I? Can I?” Mabel asked excitedly, practically bouncing in place.

Sebastian, intrigued, got up unsteadily and walked his way over to inside the barrier, to plop himself down on the ground. --Which kept Seb from doing any more magic or weirdness while he was underneath it.

Mabel squealed in glee as Bill finally let go of her and let her approach Seb.

Dipper nodded, though he looked worriedly at his sister who was now petting the man’s hair, as well as ‘coo’ing at him. He didn't want to leave her here alone with _Bill_ of all people, but she was handling herself surprisingly well... and Melody was there, too. He glanced at the girl on the ground where more plants were growing around her. Surprisingly none of the tour group seemed to have noticed the plant growth.

“Alright. Mabel, be careful.” He told her and waited for her to give him a thumbs up before he ran off to talk to Soos. It was a miracle no one had come over to question the two cryptids and he didn't want to risk it.

Seb hummed in pleasure, leaning against the girl’s soft touch. No wonder Miz has granted her wish. He loved this! He was glad his real niece didn’t know about this because she would force him into submission to her every desire!

Mabel giggled, stroking the man’s long black hair. “Your hair is so soft and pretty, sir!”

“M’Sebastian…”

“Ok, Sebastian!” Mabel exclaimed excitedly and continued petting him. “Are you a pretty dragon too?”

Seb shook his head and smiled sleepily. God, sleeping sounded so good right now…

“I-I am... A fire spirit... yeah... I make fiiree an- an heeaat and moove stuff with mah mind,” Seb giggled. Lying was bad... but he wasn’t exactly lying to his family so it wasn’t _that_ bad…

Mabel gasped and put her tiny hands on his cheeks to stare at his brown eye. “Like a fairy?!”

“Yeah... Yeah... Hand-soome fairy…”

Bill walked over to Miz. “Look, you got your Dreamscape together and working last night, right?” he said under his breath to her. At the blinking nod he got, he said, “Thought so. This much fatigue is normal at first,” he informed her quietly. “Why don’t you sleep for a bit? I’ll keep watch against anyone trying to enter your Dreamscape for you, if you want me to,” Bill told her. Getting her to fall asleep was the short-term solution for her, he figured. Sleeping would get her less tired, hopefully more sober again, and keep her from granting wishes in the meantime.

Miz pulled herself up and shifted the plants growing around her until they were larger, thicker, sturdier, and created a bed out of leaves and vines. She knew she should be talking with Bill to find a way to get to his Exit door but... earning the Pines’s trust was also a good idea.

Also sleeping. That sounded like a really good idea. No wonder Ax loved to sleep so much...

Mabel’s eyes shone with a destructive and hyperactive nature. “You can shoot fire?”

“Of courseee I can, Shootting Star!” He tried to make a blue flame with his hand. “Huh?”

Bill stepped away from Miz’s preparations for sleep, to reach out and bodily grab Seb’s wrist. He yanked Seb’s hand around until it was outstretched past the edge of the barrier. “Try now.”

Seb frowned, tried again, then grinned as he made a blue flame dance in his palm. “Go, toouuch itt!! It doesn’t hurt!”

Mabel scooted a little closer to the edge of the barrier and stuck her hand outside the barrier, too. She did as she had been told and laughed as she made the flames shift from side to side.

Melody intervened. “Mabel I don't think that's safe.”

The bounce castle was moving away as Soos and Dipper directed the tourists back to the front of the Shack.

“Make Dipper float, Sebastian!” Mabel giggled excitedly and, obeying the adorable girl’s orders, Seb raised his hand and made Dipper from this dimension start to float upwards. The child shrieked and Seb brought him closer. “Your twin!!” The man smiled widely. “Was saved!”

Bill frowned. No. NO. He snarled and grabbed Seb’s wrist again, shoving it inside the barrier again and following bodily inside, crossing the line. He acted quickly enough that Pine Tree, only a few feet up, dropped to his feet, knees, and hands safely. “--Don't touch him!” Bill snapped, losing his temper. Physical touching was one thing, humans expected that, but grabbing him with his powers?! _No_. PINE TREE WAS **_HIS_**.

Seb pouted mockingly. “And if I doooo, whatcha gonna do, kid?!”

Bil glared at him. “ ** _Do you really want me to answer that question?_** ” Bill told him, dangerous and low as he loomed over Seb.

Miz raised a hand lazily. “No touching other people’s thingssss without asking, Seb…’s rude or shomthing…”

“Kid, get inside the barrier NOW,” Bill called out to Pine Tree, without taking his eyes off of Seb. He didn’t see that Dipper had already been racing to the side to do just that, giving both him and Seb a bit of a wide berth.

Just to annoy both demons, the black-haired man grinned and turned to look at the girl watching him curiously. “Hey pumppkinn what do you want? Your friendly friend will give it to you!” Seb extended a hand for Mabel to shake.

“Yes!” Mabel exclaimed, reaching forward.

“NO,” said Bill, smacking Seb’s hand aside.

“Mabel! Stop asking the DRUNK magical creatures to do stuff for you!” Dipper cries. Seriously?! Why do they all like Mabel so much?!

“Don’t be soo boring, Massonnn!” Seb stuck his tongue out.

Dipper looked completely freaked out that this almost complete stranger knew his name.

Melody moved back behind the barrier and gently took Mabel’s hand, tugging her to her feet and moving her farther away from Seb -- to Bill’s relief -- while scolding her. “Really, Mabel, you really shouldn't take advantage of them when they're impaired like this.”

“Nooo! Mabeell!!” Seb sobbed. He wanted his niblings back... He missed them so much!

“Stop!” Dipper said, looking weirded out.

Bill mentally cursed and physically moved to put himself between Sebastian and Shooting Star --Bill _had_ to, now, as per the mutual nonaggression agreement he had with Stanley, Bill was obligated to help defend Pine Tree and Shooting Star if someone outside of the agreement attacked them. And Pine Tree had just said ‘stop’ -- he’d indicated that he was being mentally attacked.

...And this ‘him’ knew nothing about the agreement, and hadn’t had Stanley’s explanation of what ‘no’ and ‘stop’ actually meant in that context. So the first order of business was for Bill to tell this ‘him’ to--

“STOP.” Bill repeated to Seb. “Stop, or I will LET Pine Tree shoot you, Sebastian.” Bill warned this other ‘him’, while at the same time reminding Pine Tree of the fact that he _was_ armed with a potentially deadly weapon that he could use at any time. “I will HELP Pine Tree do it.” He glared down at Seb.

“I CAN do worse than simply killing you by blowing you up and taking away your current body.” Bill informed Seb cooly. He squared his shoulders as he looked down at Sebastian. “You do NOT want me to do worse.” Mainly because Bill didn’t want to even so much as _threaten_ to go back on what he’d already told both (--in front of other witnesses, even!). He didn’t want to say that he _wouldn’t_ help Seb get home if this other ‘him’ kept on doing what he was doing -- because he knew what _home_ meant to _him_ , what it would mean to _any_ ‘him’ -- because that kind of threat would likely push this ‘him’ to the very edge and across a line, one that this other ‘him’ would NOT be able to tolerate, and…

...wait. This ‘him’ was a ‘Sebastian’ that had grown up alongside a _Stanley_ , human. The _reason_ he wanted to return was because he wanted to get back to his _family_. And hadn’t he said he wanted his human-brothers back? Maybe this ‘him’ only needed a kick in the brainpan with the right set of associated word-concepts to make him understand--

“Keep your powers off my Zodiac, Sebastian,” Bill gave his ultimatum. “You don’t want me messing with your family?” he said, repeating nearly verbatim what Stanley had told him not so long ago, “Then don’t mess with my Zodiac.”

But in response to this? Seb just grinned.

‘ _Scare them! Make them angry! They don’t get to order you around, Seb!’_ Bill2 cheered.

Sebastian tried to make some fire appear but it didn't work while he was within the barrier. Miz grumbles loudly from her vine hammock. “Dun be a JERK Seb…” She waved a hand vaguely in his direction. “I'd smack you... but I can't reach you…”

Dipper stared over at the girl. “How come **you** can’t go past the barrier?”

“Because I am entirely made of magic and energy. Seb is... half human…” She was slurring less now as the energy she poured out of herself helped to burn the alcohol out of her system. Now she was just tired.

Seb wiggled a bit as he tried to reach for Mabel around Bill, who kept moving to get in the way. Seb wanted to get pet some more. Compared to Miz, he was still drunk, as evidenced by his attempts to use his powers while inside the barrier and growing more frantic when it didn't work.

Miz groans. “Take three... steps back…” ugh... maybe having a Dreamscape wasn't such a good idea. She was having trouble focusing as her body wanted to sleep.

Seb shakily stepped back and fell backwards to the ground; he landed outside the barrier again. “I imagine death so much it feels more like a mem’ory…” He said tiredly, not realizing his random statement was going to be part of a musical years later.

“ _When's it gonna get me? In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me_?” Miz continued the verse sleepily, knowing about said musical. “ _If I see it coming do I run or do I let it be?"_

Dipper was freaking out. Was the magical creature making a prophecy right now?! He opened the journal to an empty page and began quickly jotting it down. It must be super important. It was a DEATH prophecy!

Seb also was confused by Miz’s singing but made fire flicker in his palm. Yay! It worked again! “I AM the HUmAn TOrch!!!”

Not knowing how her words were being taken, Miz continued “ _Is it like a beat without a melody?”_ Melody frowned as she wondered whether it was referring to her or if it was a coincidence. “ _See I never thought I'd live past twenty... where I come from some get half as many…”_

Bill -- and, without knowing, Seb -- flinched hard at that, both thinking of ‘Liam…’

“ _Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we laugh... reach for a flask... we have to make this moment last…_ ” Miz rolled over. “ _That’s plenty…”_ she was getting sleepier and her words growing more quiet, more mumbled.

Dipper leaned forward. “Wait! Don't sleep yet! What's the rest of it?”

“... _not a moment…'s movement... hungriest brothers with something to prove when... foes oppose us... we take an honest stand... claimin’ our promised land…”_

“Dipper, she’s rapping!” Mabel giggled.

Dipper was writing this down frantically. It certainly SOUNDED important... and by the pale and stressed expression on both Bill’s and Sebastian's faces, it must be significant somehow.

“ _And if we win our independence... izzat a gar...tee... freedom for our... descendents…or will the blood we shed... begin... endless cycle of vengeance and death with no_...” Miz slumped limply and finally lost consciousness.

Sebastian felt awful. It had been fun at first but his face was red and burning, the bright sun was there, shining and making his body sweat. Gasping for air, his entire body caught in flames, just like it did the day Mabel met Mermando at the pool. Dying…he was dying…He couldn’t…

Seb’s eyes rolled backwards and he passed out.

Melody gasped in shock as the man passed out, his entire body covered in flames. The fire wasn’t burning his body, but the blue flames were sneakily running across the grass and setting the leaves on fire.

Bil snarled and jumped back across the barrier. NO RUNAWAY FLAMES. Not again, not here, NOT EVER. NEVER AGAIN. He stood tall, braced his feet, and made a wide sweeping gesture, and all of the flames went out. ALL OF THEM.

Bill stared at the ground, chest heaving. He slowly moved his head to look around at the damage from the uncontrolled fire he’d just forcibly extinguished.

Bill looked up at the two other ‘him’s, both of them drunk and passed out on the ground like a couple of humans who had had too much alcohol.

And then Bill heard the sound of Stanley’s car coming up the road to the Shack.

“ _Fine_ ,” Bill said quietly under his breath, almost to himself, with a not-quite-sane glint in his eyes. “You don’t want to do it the better way with me? Nearly burn everything down instead? --I can do it the ‘easy’ way instead. Which is the _hard_ _way_ for _you_.” ...At least, Bill _hoped_ so. He was working off a lot of assumptions and partial information, here.

As the car engine turned over, and the car doors slammed open, Bill balanced himself on the heels of his feet, then leaned forward abruptly, brought his hands together in front of his chest in the shape of a triangle, and _screamed_ out loud at the top of his lungs: “ **_!!!L-T-O-L-O-X-A!!!_** ”

There was a moment of frozen silence, when time itself seemed to stop and stand still.

And then--

\---


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Some events happen during this scene in [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582) for Miz!
> 
> In the meantime, here’s a placeholder for the “between the scenes” of what happened in the -A verse that isn’t included in Miz’s chapter posting! ;)

(Just a placeholder for now. Coming soon!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is a “repost” of a section that is also included in the crossover chapter of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582).

\---

Miz woke up and whimpered at the pounding headache. Fuck... hangovers suuuuck! She rolled over and groaned. She laid there for a few seconds before jolting up in surprise. “Shit!” She looks around. She wasn't in the backyard of the Mystery Shack.

She had been moved while asleep.

Yeah, this was the sort of thing Ax was worried about. Miz groaned. Where was she? Who moved her? Her tail twitched. Oh. She still had that. She was distracted for a bit just twirling her tail and admiring her work. Even drunk, she still managed a spontaneous bodily mutation without tearing her body apart or completely ruining her vessel.

She glanced around. Ah, she was in the underground bunker. She could see the cryo pods and shuddered. Trapped. Frozen. Imprisoned.

God damn paranoid Ford.

This was definitely Ford's idea. Miz groaned, her head ache sucked. Miz took a deep breath and sat up with her legs under her in a proper kneeling position as she _reached_ inside herself for her Mindscape. Might as well get THIS fixed. Unlike before where Ax had blocked her off from it (to stop her from moving, to stop her from getting more lost), this time she easily felt herself enter the theater/bedroom that made up her Mindscape.

She glanced around and easily found the Exit door. It was ajar. She walked over and closed it. She didn't want to accidentally get sucked out before she was ready. Also, it was kinda dangerous for the door to remain open. Who knew what could use that door to sneak inside her mind?

She fully understood now.

That Void of Doors was her TRUE Dreamscape. A pathway that leads to all the other infinite realities. And she had the door shut firmly this whole time. On Ax’s orders she had locked the door behind a shelf and stayed away from it. Because it was too dangerous.

If she entered the void of doors and left the door open... if any OTHER Bill Cipher could sneak into her Mindscape and take over her vessel…

Yeah, no wonder Ax made her seal it away, trapping her out of her Dreamscape and the sleep it would grant. But it's fine. She can create a separate Dreamscape for herself now. She's figured it out. After she gets her new friend Seb back home... she would seal off the door again.

It would be sad not being able to visit Seb, but she would need to set up more security features around her Exit before she trusted herself to explore her Dreamscape any more. Too dangerous.

Miz opened her eyes back into the real world and sighed. Her attention was caught by heavy footfalls and she blinked as THE Ford Pines came down the stairs and paused when he saw her awake. Miz stared.

Oh no he's hot.

Miz blushed and quickly averted her eyes. Oh man... those fanarts were RIGHT! She wondered if that said something about her... she saw a younger Ford in the other world and he WAS incredibly cute... but **this** older Ford with his gray hairs and strong jawline with faint age lines…

Miz squealed and wiggled in place. Eeeeeee!!!!

Ford raised an eyebrow at her, confused as to what that reaction was for. The high pitched squeals she was making were odd. Was that her native dragon language? She was wiggling and turning red and... Ford suddenly realized that she was acting like his great niece when she spotted a cute boy.

Ford turned bright red and prayed to the AXOLOTL that he was wrong in his observation. From the way the little magical creature was sneaking shy glances at him before squealing again dashed his hopes. ‘Oh no.’ He really couldn't deal with this.

“Ah… are y-you alright?” Ford said, trying to hide his embarrassment. He was still suspicious about this girl -- she had been with that man with _Bill’s_ tattoo on his back! -- but despite what Stanley might think, he wasn't heartless. He had carefully checked this girl with every non-intrusive test he could, and they all came back consistent with her earlier claim: she was what she said she was.

A dragon.

‘ _Perhaps she doesn't know her companion is somehow controlled by Bill Cipher?_ ’ Ford reasoned. Melody had said she had claimed to be foreign and had come to Gravity Falls on the recommendation of some… unknown people. Ford frowned. Dragons had powerful magic. Perhaps Bill had sent a puppet to lure her here so that he could devour her.

‘ _Yes. That must be it.’_ Ford was sure of it. Bill Cipher could _not_ be trusted and, according to Melody, Bill had wanted -- actually WANTED -- to speak with this girl. Why would Bill of all people, want to socialize with another magical creature, if not to feed on their energy and steal their power for himself?! --And that would be doubly more the case _now_ , given Bill’s current situation.

Miz looked around the room. She shuddered when she spotted the crude barrier runes scratched into each of the walls, lining the room. She twitched and patted herself down to make sure there were no binding runes on her. Thank Ax she found none.

Wait.

“Where's Seb?” Miz asked Ford worriedly. No. He couldn't have. He better not have. Her heart sank when Ford’s expression darkened.

“Your... companion is not who he seems,” Ford informed her curtly.

Miz furrowed her brows in worry. “What do you mean?”

“Do you… know who Bill Cipher is?” Ford asked.

Miz nodded. Just play along until she could go free Seb from where she knew he was being held. “Everyone knows who Bill Cipher is,” she said. Because **everyone** in the supernatural world knows who Bill Cipher was.

Ford pursed his lips. “Well, your companion was being controlled by Bill.”

Miz blinked slowly. “Um… no he isn't.”

Ford frowned. “...Yes, he was. I found Bill’s zodiac tattooed on his back. And one of his eyes was… _Bill’s_ eye!”

Miz rolled her own eyes. “Seb got drunk one night and got that tattoo. Thought it was funny. And please don't talk about his eye, he's sensitive about it.” She bullshit easily.

Ford looked to be at a loss for words. “But… he… is one of Bill Cipher's puppets!” he told her, trying to communicate the true gravity of the situation. “Your companion is being possessed.”

“Where's your proof? I MET Bill Cipher and frankly, he seemed like a perfectly nice demon.” Miz crossed her arms.

Ford pulled in a breath. Trust Bill to have actually introduced himself to his victims. --That triangle demon never changed! He felt seconds from tearing out his hair in frustration. “There _are_ no good demons! They're **demons**!” Ford told the little dragon.

“That's racist.” Miz deadpanned. Ford looked like he was gonna have a fit. It was pretty hilarious.

Frustrated, Ford looked down at the floor and tried to think of a way to convince her that what he was telling her was a valid concern.

Meanwhile, Miz began walking off to search for where Seb could be. Ford looked up just in time to realize she’d nearly left him behind in the room alone, and rushed to try to stop her from leaving. Except he didn’t feel comfortable trying to grab her by the arm, because…

Miz watched as Ford reached out towards her, but kept holding himself back from actually touching her, an odd look on his face. “Wait!” she heard him say. “You can't just…”

“Seb and I need to get home.” Miz said simply.

Ford, not to be deterred, got ahead of her and ended up standing in the doorway to try and stop her from leaving. “You have to stay here where it's safe! Bill is going to hurt you!”

Miz frowned. “Look, I don't know what your problem with Bill is but he seems like an okay dude. He's been nothing but helpful and he even offered to help us get home.”

Ford made a frustrated noise.

\---

While Miz entertained Stanford (who she’d left momentarily aghast), Seb groaned as he opened both his uncovered eyes. Now he imagined death, he wished it came. His head was killing him.

Seb raised a hand to rub his forehead but found them heavy. The confused man whined and looked down at his hands, only to find his wrists wrapped with shackles and chains.

‘ _Urgh, paranoid old man…’_ Bill2 huffed.

Panicking, Seb tried to stand up but his ankles also had chains. He stared down himself in horror, realizing he was shirtless, and saw some strange symbols on the floor, not remembering what they were. He cried. He felt -- or rather, _did not_ feel -- the itchy cloth over his eye and immediately he knew what happened. He whimpered and pulled at the chains desperately, but it was useless.

“Help!! S-Stanford!!! LET ME GO! MIZZ!! MIIIZZZZ!!!!” The man sobbed, pulling at the chains. No, no, no!! He was never going to get out of here! He would never return to his niblings! Ford was going to kill him!

_‘Your brother would do the same, you are a monster.’_

“MIIIZZZZ!!!!!”””

\---

Miz perked up, she and Ford could hear the wailing cry. “Seb!” Miz called back. Ford was nervously still standing in front of the door.

Miz was annoyed now. She pushed at Ford to try and get him out of the way (ooh... got some muscle there) and pouted. “Move, please.” It was quite upsetting that she wasn't physically strong enough to move him. Curse her tiny and adorable body.

Ford stood firm. “You don't understand,” he told her almost desperately. “I'm trying to _protect_ you.”

Miz glared at him. “I am not a child! Why does EVERYONE treat me like one?!” she proclaimed angrily, before she lifted Ford up into the air with her powers and floated him out of the way.

She ignored his panicked sounds as she stepped through the doorway, grunting a little as she had to tear her way through the barrier seals. She knew how to take down most seals, she'd done extensive research on the subject matter after her incident.

“Seb!!!” Miz called out, letting go of her hold on Ford as she began running down the halls, searching for her friend.

\---

Seb looked up when he heard her distant calls and smiled shakily. “M-Miz!!! Help me!!!” She was going to get him out. She had to!

_‘It is her fault you are trapped. She will not help.’_

Seb shook his head. Miz wouldn't do that. She was a demon Bill Cipher but she was nice. He pulled at the chains and whimpered. He really hoped he wouldn't be trapped here forever. If he couldn't get home, who would save Stan and Ford? He couldn't stand the thought of Dillon going yet another year without his father. A father he never got to meet because Sebastian was a FUCKING idiot!

“-eeeeeeb!”

Miz was still calling for him. Searching for him. Seb glanced around. Why hadn't she simply used her All Seeing Eye to find him? Well, there were no triangles here. Even his tattoo had a large bandage criss-crossed over the eye of the Bill tattoo on his back.

“Miiizz!!!!” He shouted. It was the only thing he could do right now. “I’m here!!!” Shouting hurt his throbbing head but he didn’t care. He wanted to get OUT. “Please… Please…” He sobbed but then his eyes widened in revelation.

That wasn’t his body. He could get **out**.

With a little bit of concentration, Seb left the vessel he had been wearing the whole time and sighed in relief when he found himself out, staring at the runes and chains holding back the empty vessel. Now to find Miz!

\---

Miz continued looking frantically for the man, shouting his name when suddenly, she started hearing him ...but different.

“Miz!” Seb called out, phasing through the walls and doors to find his friend. He spotted her running around, closely followed by an old- and worried-looking Ford. He wasn’t important right now, though, so he called out to the girl demon.

“OH CIRCLES, THERE YOU ARE!” Seb shouted.

“Seb!” Miz gasped.

“I’m not as dumb as everyone thinks!” Seb grinned, running a hand through his non-corporeal brown-blond curly hair, god he’d missed his original form!

Miz grinned, glad that Seb had managed to escape on his own. Sort of. “I still need to find that construct so I can dispel it.” she told him.

“Eat it.” Seb recommended her with a grin, showing her his fangs. Miz grinned with her own set of fangs. She’d never tried eating one of her own constructs before. Pyronica had assured her they were delicious though.

Ford, who couldn't hear Seb's half of the conversation, looked around wildly. “Dispel it? Dispel what?” he said, incredibly confused. Miz and Sebastian ignored him.

“Can you lead me to where he's keeping you?” Miz asked Seb. It was so hard to see down here with all that thick metal and lack of triangles.

Ford frowned. “No. Stop!”

But Miz was already running off down the hall following Sebastian’s ghostly image. Ford really couldn't stop her unless he physically restrained her, and he couldn't get close now since she'd put up a force field.

“Found it~” Miz chirped as she came upon the room with the limp construct, Ford following almost at her heels.

Ford did a double take when he noticed the body was no longer breathing. “Oh, no...” He felt horribly guilty, thinking that Bill had killed his host.

Miz shivered at the sight of the circle on the ground. Binding runes AND chains? Paranoid much? She set the circle on fire with a thought. The runes and the body burned up, leaving Ford jumping backwards in shock.

Miz stared into the flickering flames and sighed. “Well. I guess this is what happens.” She says quietly. “Oh well.” She shrugs as the flames died down to reveal the broken circle and burned body.

“I-I'm sorry for your loss…” Ford said guiltily, staring at the body. He clenched his fists, furious. See?! This was what he meant! Bill was dangerous and he had just killed this poor girl’s companion! But a part of Ford also felt vindicated, because now he finally had proof he needed to show that Stanley was wrong! ‘ _Bill is evil and he won't ever change.’_

Seb rolled his eye. “Urgh… This guy will never change…”

Miz nodded. Silly paranoid Ford. Boy she sure hoped _her_ Ford wasn't such an idiot. She stepped up to the body and knelt beside it.

Ford coughed awkwardly as he watched her. “If you need a moment to grieve, or… _what ARE YOU DOING!?_ ” Ford screamed when Miz twisted the body’s leg until it snapped off and took a bite out of it. Much like with the fish she swallowed whole, she gulped down the leg.

Sebastian and Bill2 burst into laughter.

“Hm… kinda dry. I should have seasoned it first…” Miz mumbled with her mouth full. She ripped off the other leg as Ford gagged in horror behind her, slapping a hand over his mouth. She turned to him and offered the leg. “Do you want a bite?” she asked him calmly.

Ford stared at her, wide-eyed and absolutely horrified.

“Throw the leg at him!” Seb exclaimed. Bill2 and him started chanting. “Throw the leg, throw the leg!”

“Guys, guys… Why would I throw a perfectly good leg? If it drops it'll be a waste of food.” Miz asked. Seb and Bill2 pouted in disappointment.

“-When I can throw the head!” She grinned and twisted the vessel’s head until it came off with a sickening crack. She threw it into the air and used her tail to hit it towards Ford. “Catch!!”

Ford went deathly pale and dropped to the ground, ducking under the grisly projectile. He nearly let out a scream. He hadn’t realized-- _dragons actually_ **_ate_** _humans?!_

The three (or two and a half) demons laughed at the panicked man. Miz took a few more bites before dispelling the body back into dust. “Well now that _that's_ done, I have some good news,” she told Seb, as Ford slowly backed away from her.

“What?!” the man asked excitedly.

Miz grinned. “Dad found me. We had a talk and I can make doors by myself now! Like a big girl!” She puffed out her chest proudly.

Ford hadn’t realized that there might actually be a reason why she and Bill seemed able to get along. Now, he knew. She was likely Bill’s latest attempt at a new recruit for his Henchmaniacs -- this was _exactly_ the sort of behavior that Bill’s minions engaged in without a thought of guilt, empathy, or remorse.

Unfortunately, Ford also knew exactly how powerful most dragons were purported to be, So, in the face of her ongoing distraction with whatever or whoever she was talking to(?!), he took the opportunity to move himself out of her field of vision, and then quickly bolted for the nearest door. He needed to get himself to a defensible location, and warn Stanley and the others about her!

“Wow!” Seb smiled and offered her a 6-fingered hand to high six. “So we can go home now!?” His eye lit up.

Miz nodded. “Yup. But I wanted to say goodbye to Bill first... maybe help him with something as thanks for what he's taught me.”

Seb nodded. One part of him wanted to complain, _home_!!, but his adult part understood. Miz helped him with the portal, it figured she wanted to help Bill too.

“Alright then. Let's get out of here and find Bill.” Seb said simply. Miz nodded. “Where is that door?”

Miz felt a little bad about how traumatized Ford had looked. “Hey, don't worry. Sebastian is fine,” she said for Ford’s benefit. “He is just back in spirit form. He even told me I could eat his body,” she shrugged. “It's not like I can't build another one.” At the lack of response, she turned around to face him, then she blinked in surprise when she realized the old man was gone. “Huh… he ran.”

“Shit really?” Seb looked around. Dammit Ford! “Now how are we gonna get out?” he asked.

Miz hummed. “I can teleport.” She says. Though her aim might be a bit off. Trying to triangulate (omg lol) her position while underground and surrounded by thick metal would be harder for her.

Miz reached out to grab Seb's hand. “Hold on tight. You are riding Miz airlines, please keep your appendages inside the warp zone at all times~” she closed her eyes and Blinked away.

\---


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is a “repost” of a section that is also included in the crossover chapter of [Illusion IS Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291395/chapters/36804582).

\---

“Stanley.”

“Kid,” Stanley said right back.

“ _Stanley._ ”

“Kid.” Stanley sounded _amused_ of all things, which Bill was less than thrilled about.

“This isn’t funny,” Bill said flatly, from where he was sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room of the Shack, cross-legged in the exact center of a bunch of chalk-drawn lines that might as well be scribbles for all the effectiveness the stupid things were having on him at the moment. He was covered in paper streamers.

Shooting Star tossed another handful over him. They had tiny lettering on them -- courtesy of Stanford-freaking-Pines himself, by way of Pine Tree diligently copying the runes out of the notebook Stanford had left for him onto the paper, because _of course he was doing that_.

Bill crossed his arms.

“You _know_ I’m not possessing anybody right now,” Bill said to Stanley, with an edge to his tone. Because Stanley had to know how absolutely _ridiculous_ all of this was.

“Yeah?” Stanley said breezily from where he was sitting in his chair-throne in the middle of the room, facing the TV. He was holding a magazine, which he was at the very least doing a good job of pretending to be reading. “Do I know that?”

“ _YES_ ,” Bill gritted out, glaring at him as Shooting Star threw another handful of paper streamers over him that were doing absolutely _nothing_ to or for him.

“Uh huh,” said Stanley. He actually looked up from his magazine to eye him. “So you can explain to me why that guy’s eye looks like, the way the kids say your eyes _used_ to look like, when you were possessing somebody?”

Bill clenched his jaw. “WE’VE BEEN THROUGH THIS.” Several times by this point, in fact!

“Yeah,” said Stanley. “You say you know, but you’re not tellin’.” He looked back down at his magazine. “That’s fine.”

“ _Stanley!_ ”

“It is,” Stanley told him, shaking out his magazine. “...You can just keep on sitting there until Ford’s sure that you’re not actually hurting that guy,” Stanley told him. “Or…” Stanley looked up at him again. “You can tell me what’s going on.”

Bill kept his arms crossed and remained belligerently silent. Shooting Star threw another handful of ‘confetti’ over his head.

“Suit yourself,” Stanley said good-naturedly, looking back down at his magazine.

The phone rang.

Bill glanced over at it, frowning. Pine Tree and Shooting Star ignored it. Stanley got up from his chair to answer it, grumbling under his breath as he started to shuffle towards it.

And then there was a loud noise that startled the lot of them, capturing absolutely everyone’s attention in the Shack, because--

\---

Good news, she got them back to the Mystery Shack.

Bad news, she hit the side of the Mystery Shack, popping face first against the barrier with a cartoonish ‘Thunk!’ and sliding down the dome slowly.

It was after hours now so at least there were no tourists around to see her face plant onto the ground. Unfortunately for her, all the inhabitants of the Shack, along with her spirit companions, heard/saw the embarrassing display.

“AHAHAHAHAH!” Seb and Bill2 laughed hysterically. Miz groaned “Uwu…” she rubbed her face, eyes tearing up at the bruise that was no doubt going to form on her cheek where she hit the barrier. “S’not funny…” She whined.

When Seb just continued laughing, Miz rolled her eyes and looked around. The bouncy castle was still visible around the side of the Shack. That's good, she hoped Mabel enjoyed it. She could See that Bill was inside the shack.

She also saw that they seriously thought he was partially possessing Seb. Ugh. She looked over at Seb who was still laughing as he floated around in the Mindscape. “Hey. Bill’s sort of in trouble because of you right now.”

That got him to stop. Seb sobered quickly and looked worried. “Oh... Is there anything we can do?” That kid might have been absolutely insane, but he didn't seem like a bad kid.

Miz frowned. How could she explain Seb’s eye? The zodiac tattoo could be easily and truthfully explained as Seb’s terrible drunk decision. Maybe imply that Bill was some sort of infamous celebrity in the supernatural community (which, once again, was the truth). But the eye would be harder.

A birth defect? That would, again, be the truth. Ah, that's it! Miz had already told them all that Sebastian was half-human. She can spin it so that the yellow eye was from his Fire Spirit half -- once again, technically true (Bill was mainly a Fire elemental type demon). And he kept it hidden because he had been raised by humans (truth) and was horribly bullied for it (truth).

She flickered quickly through some more information about Seb’s life, realizing afterwards that it might have been a terrible breach of his privacy but she was just so USED to doing this whenever she wanted to know something, and found even more truthful evidence to build the story on.

Sebastian was a half-elemental fire spirit who had been raised by humans. He was bullied all his life for his eye, a sign of his mixed heritage, not that he knew, and only discovered his powers and said heritage when his abilities suddenly manifested. Seeking help to control his powers, he had gone into seclusion to meditate and left his physical body behind to search for someone to help him. That was how he met Miz within the Mindscape and she had taken him around the world to other Supernatural hotspots to let him get acclimated to other forms of magic.

She nodded to herself. Cover story made and, for a lack of time to explain as such, she projected the information directly into Seb's mind. He hissed and clenched his teeth. “Ow... oh... that's…” he blinked as the pain faded just as quickly as it came. “That's pretty cool…”

The door to the Shack swung open, and Stan stepped out onto the porch, squinting out across the grass in Miz’s direction.

“ _Great_ ,” Stan muttered, as he stared at the ‘dragon’ standing out in his backyard. Just what he had needed today. “‘I’ll keep her isolated someplace safe,’ sure, Ford,” he grumbled out. “Whatever you say,” he added sarcastically, because sometimes, _his brother_ , Stan swore…

“--Hey!” Stan yelled out, in such a way that his voice projected across the yard so that it would be heard, not quite ‘Mr. Mystery’-style. “You didn’t eat Ford, did you?”

Miz grinned, a tiny mouth filled with sharp teeth. “No, but Seb asked me to eat his vessel because he woke up chained and bound in runes. He didn't appreciate it and wanted to get a new one.”

“Uh huh,” said Stan. “Who’s Seb, and what’s a vessel?” Stan asked. He didn’t actually have to ask what a vessel was; Bill had first brought that up when the ‘human-ish body, not possessing some random person!’ thing had been a thing, and it had come up again during some of that ‘anchor-not-a-binding’ talk he’d had with the kid two days ago.

Miz gestured beside her. “Seb's over here but he's in spirit form so you can't exactly see him.” She turned to speak to what Stan only saw as empty air. “Do you want a new vessel?”

Seb nodded. “Same one?” He asked. Miz shook her head. “Naw, something... a little closer to your ‘true' form this time.” She winked at him and he grinned, excited to see what she would create this time.

As both Sebastian and Stanley watched, Miz held her hands out and began pulling at the air before her, fingers moving as if she were weaving something. The air swirled and this time she made deliberate dust clouds to cover the process of a body being built from the ground up. Bones, organs, muscles, skin…

The appearance this time was similar to Sebastian's real form mixed with the new one she had made a day ago. Bright blond hair mixed with black, a handsome face and mismatched eyes. This time though she added a little something extra. Golden markings that looked like flames now decorated the skin of his face and body along the side where his demon eye was. Miz was going to milk the idea of the eye being a sign of his Fire spirit heritage showing through.

If they asked, she would say his previous, fully human appearance was created on his requests due to a desire to fit in.

Stan watched this whole procedure without comment, or any real expression on his face at all. Once she was done, Stan grimaced slightly, scratched the side of his cheek, and said, “Yeah, okay. You didn’t kill Ford, did you?” in the same tone of voice that he’d used when he’d asked if she’d eaten his brother not a minute earlier.

Miz shook her head. “I wouldn't do that. Even if he was super rude, he hasn't caused me or Seb any truly lasting damage.” She tilted her head at him. “But if he DID then I confess I might try to take a bite out of him.”

“More like a nibble, your mouth is so small.” Seb said teasingly as he settled into his new vessel. He admired the swirling golden pattern along his skin. This was so fucking awesome!!

“Uh huh,” Stan said without really any inflection to his tone. “You want to tell me what you want with the kid?” he asked her, while more or less ignoring the weird body she’d pulled out of nowhere. Stan assumed that was why she was back at the Shack, anyway.

“Well you see, I came here as a vacation thing to feel the magic in this valley.” Miz answered politely. “But I realized a little while after we came that there seemed to be a barrier around this whole area. Supernaturals can come in but they can't leave.”

Stan gave her a long look, but didn’t say anything. That was lie number one and two.

Miz sighed. “I asked around for anyone who might know how to help and heard about the Mystery Shack. And here I met Bill. And um... I realized that I needed his help if I wanted to leave and go home.”

Lie number three. Stan was less than impressed at this point, already. ‘Meeting Bill here’ seemed to be on the mark. He wasn’t too surprised that Bill hadn’t been the one to reach out first; he’d had a long talk with Bill about what a bad idea it would be to get involved with any of his ‘Henchmaniacs’ right now. ...Stan was less sure about that last one, though. ‘Help’ for a demon was a concept he was still working on working out with the kid, still.

Seb watched Miz quietly and sighed. He could tell Stanley wasn't buying it. “Hey Miz, I think we can trust Stan with the truth. He's not Ford. I think he would understand.” Seb glanced up at this alternative version of his brother. Stan might not be into science, but he had always been more truthful than Ford, he _believed_ you. Even his wife-to-be believed him!

“Trust an old con-man?” Stan gave them both a Mr. Mystery grin. “Sure -- you can step right up and try your luck!”

Miz glanced at Seb. He gave her a calm look and she sighed. “Fine,” she pouted. “But I was having fun making up a cool story to use.” She took a deep breath. “I disobeyed my dad and did something I wasn't supposed to and it led to me getting lost and stuck here. And I thought I needed Bill’s help to get home.”

Stan lost the fake grin and his eyebrows went up. As far as he could tell, the dragon wasn’t actually feeding him a line this time.

Seb had a grin as he nudged her. “And…?” He asked.

Miz pouted harder. “And Bill DID help. He called my dad... and I got sort of lectured... but everything's good now and I can get us back home…” She rubbed her arm and shifted shyly. “And I came back here because I wanted to thank him for his help. Both for calling my dad and also for teaching me how to get over my insomnia.”

“Huh,” Stan said contemplatively.

Seb laughed at her, which made her blush in embarrassment. “Aw~ little Miz got scolded by her papa~” he teased.

Miz kicked him in the shin. As Seb jumped around hissing in pain, Miz folded her arms and pouted even harder. Bill2 was laughing loudly ‘ _Pathetic! You're getting beat up by a girl half your size! Weaaakk!’_

“Eh, well, I’ll pass along the thanks to the kid,” Stan told them. “He’s a little... _busy_ right now,” he added with not quite a smirk.

Miz nodded but looked a bit disappointed that she couldn't tell Bill herself. She thought for a bit before coming to a decision. “Can you give Bill a message for me?” She asked.

“Sure,” Stan said, leaning up against the wooden porch-post to his right. “What’s the message?”

Miz thought about how to phrase it. “Tell him that I know he hates my dad and I understand why and where he's coming from. But I know that even if my dad's... neglectful... he really DOES care. Deep down. And he’s just too afraid and kinda stupid to know how to show it.”

Stan frowned slightly. “You sure you want me to pass that along to him?”

Miz nodded. “I know he won't appreciate it but I think it's important.” She bit her lip, wondering how much she was allowed to say. She didn't want another lecture about keeping the alternative realities separate and stuff. “I know dad also loves him too. If he didn't... then Bill wouldn't have survived as long as he has…” she left it at that, unwilling or unable to say more. Seb was frowning at her while Bill2 screamed _‘What kind of bullshit is that?! The Axolotl ‘loving' us?! What a joke!’_

Stan gave out a sigh. “Look,” he said. “Enough with the cryptic bull that’s gonna make the kid that much angrier.” He gave her another long look. “The kid talks to me, yeah? And there’s only one thing that kid hates,” he told her. “And it’s ‘that stupid lizard’ of his. I know exactly what he thinks about the ‘it’ you’re talking about. I tell him what you just told me? And the kid might just write you off completely.” He watched her carefully. “You _sure_ you want me to pass that along to him?”

Miz sighed. “Yeah. I figured. I just... wanted him to stop being angry all the time. He's never gonna get over his trauma and pain if he keeps holding onto it.” She shuffled her legs in the grass. “I was sad for the longest time. I lost my brother and nothing else seemed to matter anymore... but dad told me to go find some friends. And I have. And they're my family now. They'll never replace my brother but I can think about him without as much pain as I used to…” She looked away sheepishly. “I know it sounds kinda pretentious but I kinda wanted to help Bill feel better too.”

“Look,” Stan said, feeling uncomfortable at the mention of a ‘lost brother’, but deciding to level with her over this. “The kid’s not gonna stop being angry until he fixes everything that that lizard-dad of yours won’t,” Stan told her flat-out. “Words ain’t gonna help. He’s had a trillion years to think about every last thing he doesn’t like about everything, and...” Stan shook his head. “Kid still doesn’t know how he’s going to pull it off -- hell, not like I know any better -- but he ain’t giving up. That’s his line. ...One of ‘em, anyway.” Stan shrugged at her and straightened back up. “I’ll tell the kid what you told me, but all you’re really doing is telling him how much you don’t know that he thinks he already does.”

Miz sighed. “Figures. I suppose he IS older than me... well thanks anyway. If you think it'd be better for him not to hear you can just forget it, I'll leave it up to your judgment..”

Stan shrugged. He’d probably tell Bill. Later that night, when no-one and their pig was listening in. The kid had surprised him before; maybe he’d handle it better than Stan thought.

Miz gave Stan a polite bow and was about to leave when she thought of something. She smirked. One last bit of chaos. She flicked her fingers and created a quarter. It looked like any regular quarter. She played with it for a bit before walking up and leaving it at the edge of the barrier. “A little gift for you, for listening to me ramble and... for taking care of Bill. If there's anyone who can help him heal... it’d probably be you.”

“Thanks,” Stan said sarcastically with a knowing look, crossing his arms. “But I don’t take gifts from demons for junk I’d do without a bribe.” And ‘healing’ wasn’t exactly what he was trying to do anyway. Kid was completely insane. If this dragon-demon or whatever didn’t get that… well, that wasn’t his problem.

Miz smiled. “It's a Quarter. A perfectly normal US Quarter... that’ll always return to you within a day of you spending it.” She shrugged. “Take it or leave it. I don't particularly care.”

Stan’s eyebrows went up.

“I’ll think about it,” Stan said casually, eyes alight. But what he was _really_ thinking of was getting the kid to check it over after the two whatevers had left, and to make more of the things if he could. Could come in handy someday, or at least at the slots in Vegas...

She turns to Seb who was still gazing at Stan. Circles, he missed his brother so much. 30 years. That was how long this Stan spent to get his Ford back. Seb clenched his hands into fists. _I'll get them back. I WILL. And I will never stop trying until I do._ He thought. Seb took a deep breath, trying not to break down here, and slipped his hand onto Miz’s. “So we're heading home now huh?”

She smiles. “Yeah.” With a twist of her power she materialized the Exit door. The two looked back at the Shack one last time before they stepped through. It swung shut behind them and vanished. Stan watched them go. And he waited a minute.

Then he turned around and called out loudly, back into the house, “Hey, kid--”

\---


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: And here’s a **placeholder** for another new “between the scenes” of what happened in the -A verse that isn’t included in Miz’s chapter posting, to finish us off! ;)

(Just a placeholder for now. Coming soon!)


End file.
